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Poet's  Poet  and 


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UNIVERSITY  OF  CAI 

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THE  POET'S  POET 


AND 


Other  Essays 


WILLIAM  A.  QUAYLE 


THIRD   EDITION 


CINCINNATI:  CURTS  &  JENNINGS 
NEW  YORK:  EATON  &  MAINS 
1897. 


COPYRIGHT,  1897,  BY 
CURTS    *    JENNINGS. 


•     * 


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To  claim  a  new  message  to  literary  folk 

would    be  presumptuous.     And   the   author's 

self-justification   for  this  volume  is  that  of  a 

lover.     A  lover's  passion  makes  him  voluble. 

The  words  herein  set  down  are  expressions  of 

loves   historical    and   literary.     And   if   these 

studies  shall   stimulate  affection  for  the  men 

and   works   he   loves,   the    author   will    rest 

content. 

WM.  A.  QUAYLE. 

3 


CONTENTS. 

PAGE. 

The  Poet's  Poet, 7 

King  Cromwell, 39 

William  the  Great,  of  England, 80 

The  Greater  English  Elegies, 124 

Soliloquies  of  Hamlet  and  Macbeth, 139 

"The  Ebb  Tide," 151 

The  Jew  in  Fiction, 167 

Robert  Burns, 201 

The  Psychology  of  Nathaniel  Hawthorne,    .   •   .  217 

Shakespeare's  Women, 246 

"The  Deserted  Village,"    . 265 

George  Eliot  as  Novelist, 273 

"The  Ring  and  the  Book," 292 

Shylock  and  David  as  Interpreters  of  Life,  •   •   •  326 

Poem :  An  Angel  Came, 352 

5 


The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other 

Essays 

The  Poet's  Poet 

Robert  Browning  is  the  poet's  poet.  And 
it  is  a  tonic  to  the  soul  to  recall  what  sort  of 
man  he  was.  Robert  Browning  was  himself  a 
poem.  Pure,  virile,  versatile,  balanced,  pro- 
found, erudite,  unsullied  with  base  desire  or 
impure  motive;  in  aspiration  outsoaring  eagles; 
in  love  beautiful  as  any  idyl  ever  dreamed; 
with  singleness  of  purpose  to  be  a  poet,  a  poet 
only;  in  amplitude  of  thought  swinging  across 
the  world;  in  labors  abundant  beyond  Shake- 
speare; in  character  Christian;  in  faith  tri- 
umphant, and  dwelling 

"Nigh  to  heaven,  and  loved  of  loftiest  stars," — 

these  are  set  down  as  main  truths  which  cer- 
tify Robert  Browning  to  be  both  poet  and 
poem.  And  he  is  the  poet's  poet  because  he 
is  a  mine  from  whose  exhaustless  store  gener- 
ations of  poets  may  dig  treasure.  He  dealt  in 
hints.  His  poems,  says  Lowell,  "were  germs 
of  wholesome  ferment  for  other  minds."     His 

7 


8  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

utterances  were  seeds,  a  tree's  bulk  in  an 
acorn's  cup.  Poets  shall  sit  before  him  as 
painters  before  a  Raphael,  and  drink  inspira- 
tion which  shall  prove 

"A  joy  forever, 
Whose  loveliness  increases,  and  will  never 
Pass  into  nothingness;  but  still  will  keep 
A  bower  quiet  for  us,  and  a  sleep 
Full  of  sweet  dreams  and  health  and  quiet  breath- 
ing. 

The  genius  of  Browning  is  no  more  a  sub- 
ject for  debate  than  the  genius  of  Shake- 
speare. That  contemporaries  were  so  slow  to 
appreciate  his  might  is  one  of  the  enigmas  of 
our  generation.  "Here  was  the  greatest  Eng- 
lish poet  since  Shakespeare,"  says  Edward 
Berdoe,  "pouring  out  treasures  of  thought,  and 
we  would  have  none  of  him."  But  failure  on 
our  part  to  appreciate  this  gift  of  God  makes 
nothing  against  his  genius.  Landor  was  right 
in  saying: 

"Shakespeare  is  not  our  poet;  but  the  world's. 
Therefore  for  him  no  speech!  and  brief  for  thee. 
Browning!     Since  Chaucer  was  alive  and  hale, 
No  man  hath  walked  along  our  roads  with  step 
So  active,  so  inquiring  eye,  or  tongue 
So  varied  in  discourse." 


The  Poet's  Poet  9 

Mabie  was  right:  "Since  Shakespeare,  no 
maker  of  English  verse  has  seen  life  on  so 
many  sides,  entered  into  it  with  such  intensity 
of  sympathy  and  imagination,  and  pierced  it 
to  so  many  centers  of  its  energy  and  motive." 

Professor  Corson  was  right:  "Browning 
is  the  most  like  Shakespeare  in  his  deep  in- 
terest in  human  nature,  in  all  its  varieties  of 
good  and  evil;"  "and  he  has  worked  with  a 
thought-and-passion  capital  greater  than  the 
combined  thought-and-passion  capital  of  the 
richest   of  his   contemporaries." 

Elizabeth  Barrett  Browning,  who  loved  her 
poet  and  wrote,  celebrative  of  that  love,  Son- 
nets from  the  Portuguese,  has  said: 

"Thou  hast  thy  calling  to  some  palace  floor, 
Most  gracious  singer  of  high  poems. 
Unlike  are  we,  unlike,  O  princely  Heart! 
Unlike  our  uses  and  our  destinies. 
Our  ministering  two  angels  look  surprise 
On  one  another,  as  they  strike  athwart 
Their  wings  in  passing.    Thou,  bethink  thee,  art 
A  guest  for  queens  to  social  pageantries 
With  gazes  from  a  hundred  brighter  eyes 
Than  tears  can  ever  make  mine,  to  ply  thy  part, 
Of  chief  musician.    What  hast  thou  to  do 
With  looking  from  the  lattice  lights  at  me, 
A  poor,  tired,  wandering  singer?" 


IO  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

I  repeat,  I  do  no  more  argue  the  genius  of 
Browning  than  the  genius  of  Shakespeare. 

Raise  this  question,  What  is  Browning's 
weakness?  And  allow  him  to  have  blemishes. 
We  render  no  service  in  denying  truth.  Such 
championship  is  treason.  No  artist  is  perfect. 
No  poet  can  claim  infallibility  in  technique. 
So  allow  he  has  faults,  such  as  a  lack  of  sense 
of  proportion,  involved  thought  and  treat- 
ment, infelicitous  captions,  and  apparent  cru- 
dity of  style. 

Browning's  lack  of  sense  of  proportion 
grows  out  of  his  surprising  affluence  of 
thought.  He  sees  all,  and  will  tell  all.  This 
is  the  fault  of  sunlight.  It  transcribes  the 
whole  landscape.  It  goes  into  details,  forgets 
nothing.  Have  you  seen  a  forest  mirrored  in 
the  quiet  of  an  autumn  stream?  Did  the  light 
forget  anything?  The  sky,  gray  as  a  tired  face, 
lay  sleeping  in  the  stream.  The  banks  with 
violet  leaves  huddled  together;  with  sumacs, 
stout  color-bearers  holding  up  their  banners 
of  flame  which  the  morrow  would  tear  to  tat- 
ters; with  broken  branches  lying  where  the 
wind  had  thrown  them  down  and  forgotten 
them ;  with  a  patch  of  grass  still  green,  though 
all  but  covered  with  leaves  whose  beauty  was 


The  Poet's  Poet  1 * 

a  memory — the  bank  lay  anchored  in  the 
stream  like  a  boat.  And  the  tall  trees  girt 
round  with  strength,  defying  storms,  the  lordly 
trunk,  the  graceful  drooping  of  the  swaying 
branches,  the  exquisite  tracery  of  the  maple 
bark,  the  clinging  ivy  whose  blushes  had  not 
quite  faded  from  the  cheek — the  trees  in  this 
dear  woodland  seemed  rooted  in  the  stream. 
And  the  light,  rare  painter,  had  forgotten  noth- 
ing. Such  vision  had  Browning,  and  would 
photograph  the  world.  "This  and  this  I  saw," 
is  what  he  tells  you.  He  was  seer.  Nothing 
eludes  him.  What  not  to  write  was  more  a 
trouble  to  him  than  what  to  write.  His  genius 
needed  narcotic,  not  stimulant.  He  sees  so 
much,  too  much  for  artistic  effect.  His  very 
genius  was  his  hurt.  Walt  Whitman  has  no 
trouble  about  proportion.  His  ideas  are  scant 
as  December  leaves.  Gray  was  an  unusual 
artist,  and  experienced  no  difficulty  in  subor- 
dinating parts,  because  his  poet's  thought  was 
as  scantily  furnished  as  a  poor  man's  parlor. 
Thoughts  were  his  trouble:  while  with  Brown- 
ing superabundance  is  the  peril.  Poe,  genius 
and  artist  as  he  was,  wrote  his  music  in  one 
key.  One  thought  stands  in  the  foreground 
of  all  his  verse.     But  Browning?     Thought, 


12  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

imagination,  resources  of  poetry  crowded  his 
mind  like  an  o'erfull  fountain.  His  poems  are 
a  wilderness,  in  whose  tangle  of  vine  and 
undergrowth  and  trees  you  find  your  way  hid- 
den and  hindered.  The  richness  of  the  soil 
was  the  traveler's  hindrance. 

And  his  poems  are  involved.  Scarcely  one 
of  them  which  would  not  bear  the  prelude  of 
an  explanatory  note.  They  are  dark  rooms, 
needing  a  lifted  curtain  to  discover  the  hidden 
wealth  of  statue  and  picture.  In  his  poems 
we  do  not  know  where  to  begin.  The  han- 
dling is  abstruse.  The  wealth  of  thought  be- 
wilders. We  have  lost  the  points  of  the  com- 
pass. The  movement  is  so  involved,  so  un- 
usual, as  to  appear  a  process  of  bewilderment. 
Tennyson  keeps  straight  on.  To  follow  the 
course  of  a  stream  is  not  easier  than  to  follow 
him.  Browning  impresses  us  at  first  acquaint- 
ance as  not  so  much  taking  a  journey  as  going 
on  a  ramble.  His  flight  is  as  of  a  bird  to 
whose  wing  fatigue  is  unknown.  Browning  is 
mystifying.  We  never  feel  quite  sure  we  have 
his  meaning.  He  keeps  somewhat  back. 
Though  in  many  of  his  poems,  if  a  clue  be  fur- 
nished us,  the  central  truth  is  plain:  yet  with- 
out that  -clue  we  walk  in  darkness.     Consider 


The  Poet's  Poet  1$ 

the  following  poems:  "Abt  Vogler,"  "How  it 
Strikes  a  Contemporary,"  "A  Toccata  of  Ga- 
luppi's,"  "Andrea  Del  Sarto,"  "Fra  Lippo 
Lippi,"  "Bishop  Blougram's  Apology,"  and 
even  "Saul."  Not  to  understand  time,  place, 
person,  is  to  find  yourself  nonplused;  but  once 
understood,  how  intoxicating  the  poem  is! 
The  "Grammarian's  Funeral"  stirs  pulse  like 
a  battle's  shout  and  tumult.  "Fra  Lippo 
Lippi"  is  such  a  study  of  lust  in  relation  to 
art  as  opens  a  new  page  of  soul-life  to  our 
eyes.  A  "Toccata  of  Galuppi's"  reincarnates 
the  voluptuous  life  of  Venice  on  the  seas  as 
not  all  history  knows  to  do.  "Abt  Vogler" 
and  "Andrea  del  Sarto"  are  studies  in  artist 
psychology;  the  one  in  sound,  the  other  in 
color,  from  whose  witchery  we  know  not  how 
to  escape.  "Saul,"  open  as  it  appears,  is  in- 
tricate in  movement.  One  of  the  great  poems 
of  the  century,  it  always  bewilders.  In  Brown- 
ing you  never  can  be  sure  of  yourself.  You 
have  a  haunting  fear  lest  the  meaning  you 
attach  is  not  the  poet's  meaning;  and  that  he 
is  covertly  laughing  at  you.  Still,  this  very 
uncertainty  comes  to  be  a  supreme  attraction. 
We  do  not  drink  from  empty  cups  nor  from 
dry  springs.    In  reading  this  poetry,  the  thrill 


14  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Othet  Essays 

of  discovery  is  on  you.  Each  new  perusal 
gives  a  new  intent  of  the  poem.  You  feel  a 
navigator  in  uncharted  seas.  I  will  not  thank 
you  for  fountains  if  I  can  drink  them  dry.  I 
thank  you  for  the  exhaustless.  And  Brown- 
ing tantalizes  you:  he  will  give  you  room, 
sea -room,  and  a  boat,  and  cry,  "Set  sail!" 

Browning's  titles  for  his  poems  are  infelic- 
itous. Some  of  them  are  execrable.  "Red 
Cotton  Night-cap  Country,"  "A  Bean-stripe: 
also  Apple-eating,"  "Prince  Hohenstiel- 
Schwangau,  Savior  of  Society."  We  rebel 
against  these  titles  as  we  would  grow  outraged 
with  a  surly  porter  at  a  gate.  There  is  art  in 
naming  poems;  and  there  is  something  in  a 
name.  True,  a  name  comes  to  be  beautiful 
to  us  from  association  with  the  owner,  just  as 
a  face  does.  Some  common  names  are  music 
because  of  those  who  bear  them.  Alfred 
Tennyson  seems  a  rare  name  for  a  poet,  as 
does  Robert  Browning;  but  presumptively  it 
is  because  these  men  were  poets  of  so  great 
gifts.  But  some  names  are  intrinsically  sweet. 
It  would  be  hard  for  a  woman  who  bore  the 
name  of  Mary  not  to  be  lovely.  Shakespeare 
displayed  art  in  naming  his  plays,  but  rarer 


The  Poet's  Poet  15 

art  in  naming  his  women.  I  think  he  never 
gave  a  woman  an  unlovely  name.  If  she  were 
foul  at  heart,  he  would  give  her  this  one  prop- 
erty of  beauty.  Jessica,  Miranda,  Desdemona, 
Cordelia,  Juliet,  Ophelia,  Imogen, — why,  these 
names  are  essential  music.  And  Tennyson  is 
artist  in  choosing  captions  for  his  poems. 
Arden,  Ulysses,  yEnone,  Vivien,  Elaine,  Enid, 
Guinevere, — these  seem  to  me  sweet  as  the 
sound  of  a  lute  at  night.  But  Browning  was 
careless  of  these  things.  Some  of  his  poems  are 
exquisitely  named.  "Evelyn  Hope,"  "Cleon," 
"Death  on  the  Desert,"  "Pheidippides,"  "Blot 
in  the  'Scutcheon,"  "Luria,"  "Sordello,"— who 
could  fault  such  captions?  His  women  are 
often  gracefully  named;  witness,  Mildred,  Pippa, 
Colombe,  Michal,  Palma,  Pauline,  Constance, 
Evelyn,  and  the  like.  But  one  thing  is  clear: 
he  took  no  large  pains  with  titles.  He  ought. 
The  portico  is  something.  Often  his  titles  are 
like  the  poems,  hints;  more,  they  are  riddles. 
But  in  the  main  the  poems  bear  descriptive 
titles,  and  the  poem  when  read  justifies  the 
title.  Such  are:  "Pippa  Passes,"  "In  a  Bal- 
cony," "In  an  Inn  Album,"  "Pietro  of  Abano," 
"The  Two  Poets  of  Croisic,"  "In  a  Gondola;" 


1 6  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

but  I  make  no  doubt  that  this  carelessness  in 
caption  is  responsible  for  many  a  reader  turn- 
ing away,  leaving  the  poem  unread. 

And  Browning's  style  of  expression  is  ob- 
jectionable. His  verse  is  certified  to  be  crude; 
and  so  in  many  instances  it  is.  "Sordello"  rep- 
resents this  literary  opaqueness,  as  in  a  greater 
or  less  degree  many  other  poems  do.  We 
must  admit  he  is  careless,  ragged  sometimes, 
slovenly  often.  Sometimes  his  verse  is  not 
poetry  at  all,  as  in  "Air.  Sludge  the  Medium. " 
Shakespeare,  without  a  word  of  explanation, 
stepped  out  of  poetry  into  prose:  this  Brown- 
ing does;  and  the  objection  to  be  offered  is 
that  he  does  not  label  it  prose.  Stedman 
quotes  with  approval  the  estimate  of  a  friend 
to  this  effect:  "His  work  seems  that  of  a  grand 
intellect  painfully  striving  for  adequate  use 
and  expression,  and  never  quite  attaining 
either;"  but  I  am  not  of  those  who  concur  in 
Stedman's  judgment.  Browning,  as  I  read 
him,  was  not  incapable  of  exquisite  grace  or 
music.  When  he  elected  to  be,  he  was  as 
musical  as  laughter.  "Evelyn  Hope"  is  idyllic 
in  sweetness.  "Meeting  at  Night"  and  "Part- 
ing at  Morning"  are  beautiful  as  the  love  they 
celebrate.    Nobody  forgets  the  song  in  "Pippa 


The  Poet's  Poet  17 

Passes;"  and  the  words  Henry  sung  under 
Mildred's  window  are  exquisite  as  the  faultless 
lyrics  in  "The  Princess."  Have  you  read  many 
sweeter  things  than  the  lyric  which  introduces 
"The  Two  Poets  of  Croisic?" 

"Such  a  starved  bank  of  moss 
Till  that  May  morn, 
Blue  ran  the  flash  across: 
Violets  were  born. 

Sky — what  a  scowl  of  cloud 

Till  near  and  far, 
Ray  on  ray  split  the  shroud: 

Splendid,  a  star! 

World — how  it  walled  about 

Life  with  disgrace 
Till  God's  own  smile  came  out: 

That  was  thy  face." 

Passages  by  the  score  could  be  selected 
which  would  justify  this  claim.  The  closing 
of  the  Pope's  monologue  in  "The  Ring  and 
the  Book"  is  deathless  music  and  deathless 
poetry.  I  think  it  evident,  therefore,  that  if 
Browning  was  not  always  musical,  it  was  not 
because  his  was  not  the  musician's  gift.  Many 
of  his  lines  are  as  noble  as  Marlowe's,  and  his 
lyrics  as  dainty  as  a  child's  singing  in  the  sun. 

2 


1 8  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

I  go  further.     In  Robert  Browning's  style  is 
a  phenomenal  conjoining  of  meter  to  thought. 
Perhaps  no  English  poet  has  equaled  him  in 
this  regard.     While  often  not  musical,  he  is 
at  one  with  his  theme.     The  meter  in  "The 
Pied  Piper  of  Hamelin"  dances  like  the  chil- 
dren who  followed  the  piper's  music.     "How 
They  Brought  the  Good  News  from  Ghent 
to  Aix" — well,  we  can  hear  the  drum-beat  of 
the  horses'  hoofs  as,  with  distended  nostrils, 
with   panting  flanks  and   foam-flecked  sides, 
they   galloped   toward  the   announcement  at 
Aix.     "Mr.   Sludge"  has  for  theme  the  ex- 
posure of  a  humbug;  and  the  style,  uncouth  as 
it  is,  is  adapted  to  the  theme.     The  lawyer's 
arguments  in  "The  Ring  and  the  Book"  are 
in  cast  of  argument  and  style  not  less  admira- 
bly adapted  for  what  they  were  intended  than 
Caponsacchi,  Guido,  Pompilia,  or  the   Pope. 
I   may    illustrate    my    meaning   lucidly    from 
"Caliban  upon  Setebos."     In  no  one  of  this 
poet's  productions  is  the  style  more  distorted. 
You  seem  walking  over  the  marl  of  an  extinct 
volcano.  You  can  imagine  nothing  purporting 
to  be  poetry  more  wrenched  and  misshapen. 
But  consider  that  in  no  one  of  his  series  of  psy- 
chological studies  is  Browning's  genius  more 


The  Poet's  Poet  19 

incontestable  than  in  "Caliban  upon  Setebos." 
Caliban  in  Shakespeare's  portrait  was  little 
raised  above  the  brute.  He  is  Prospero's  ani- 
mal, cowed,  mastered,  but  brutal  and  vin- 
dictive. Browning  conceives  this  poor  savage 
as  a  speculator  in  theology.  He  lies  face 
downward  in  the  slush  bordering  the  sea.  He 
looks  downward,  as  if  anybody  could  get  a 
sight  of  God  without  looking  upward!  Cal- 
iban's notion  of  God  must  be  of  the  murkiest. 
God  is  an  overgrown  Caliban,  mayhap  a 
greater  Prospero.  Caliban's  ideas  must  be  dis- 
torted: his  expressions  will  also  be  tangled,  ir- 
relevant, shapeless.  To  me,  "Caliban  upon  Sete- 
bos" appears  a  triumph  of  form  as  of  debased 
psychology,  which  grows  more  astonishing 
each  time  I  read  it.  So,  then,  our  conclusion 
is,  Browning's  style  is  far  from  the  crude  and 
abnormal  creation  many  imagine  it;  often 
rude,  oftener  musical  or  adapted  in  the  highest 
artistic  sense  to  the  part  it  was  to  play. 

Thus  far  we  have  considered  Browning's 
faults.  Our  attitude  has  been  negative;  but 
criticism  is  not  the  art  of  finding  fault  as  some 
suppose,  but  is  rather  the  art  of  discriminative 
observation.  Destruction  is  not  criticism  in 
any  valid  sense.     The  negative  in  it  corre- 


20  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

sponds  to  the  clearing  away  the  debris  pre- 
paratory to  construction.  So  the  critic's  chief 
and  nobler  business  is  to  discover  merit,  as  a 
navigator,  continent  and  sea.  Criticism  is  con- 
structive, and  must  never  content  itself  with 
negative  processes.  To  name  the  faults  of 
Browning,  as  the  faults  of  any  man  or  poet,  is 
an  easy  task,  since  they  are  apparent.  Faults 
lie  in  plain  sight,  while  the  massive  genius  of 
him  remains  to  be  discovered.  Fault-finding 
is  a  superficial  business,  but  discriminative 
discovery  of  merit  is  a  profound  business.  To 
dismiss  Browning  as  a  certain  critic  did,  call- 
ing his  poetry  simply  "Trash,"  is  a  crude  but 
easy  process.  Let  ours  be  the  manlier  method 
of  allowing  faults  where  faults  exist,  but  mak- 
ing our  chief  concern  to  discover  worth. 

And  what  is  Browning's  strength?  And 
this  word  is  apt,  seeing  he  was  what  he  was. 
Browning  is  virile.  We  know  it  is  a  man's 
voice  we  hear.  Allow  his  strength  to  be  dimly 
outlined  in  the  following  enumeration:  Fe- 
cundity; wealth  of  theme,  knowledge,  and 
thought;  dramatic  power;  profound  psychol- 
ogy; Christian  attitude;  and  inspirational 
value. 

Browning  rivals  all  our  great  poets  in  his 


The  Poet's  Poet  21 

affluence  of  creation.  Corson  says:  "His  is  the 
largest  body  of  poetry  produced  by  any  one 
poet  in  English  literature."  A  river  formed 
by  innumerable  rivulets  among  the  hills — sil- 
very threads  which  go  afar  and  drink  waters 
from  mossy  bank  and  dewdrop  from  the 
morning  flowers — a  river  thus  formed  is  beau- 
tiful, and  its  origin  has  all  the  grace  of  poetry; 
but  a  river  spouting  from  a  fountain,  a  river 
at  the  first,  is  thrilling  as  a  storm  at  sea.  There 
is  such  prodigality  of  power  in  Browning.  The 
heavens  hold  the  stars  and  the  oceans,  and  are 
not  full.  This  poet  has  like  limitless  capacity. 
He  gave  in  spendthrift  fashion,  withholding 
nothing;  yet  are  his  powers  not  exhausted. 
He,  as  his  own  Sordello,  was  found  dead,  and 
death  put  stop  to  his  music.  But  had  he  lived ! 
We  no  more  conceive  his  productiveness  run 
dry  than  that  of  Shelley  or  Keats,  though  his 
life  was  the  age  of  both.  "The  Ring  and  the 
Book"  is  epic  in  size,  conception,  and  treat- 
ment. Stedman  has  rightly  said  of  it:  "Yet 
the  thought,  the  vocabulary,  the  imagery,  the 
wisdom,  lavished  upon  this  story  would  equip 
a  score  of  ordinary  writers,  and  place  them 
beyond  danger  of  neglect."  His  resources 
wring  wonder  from  us  as  the  mountains  do. 


22  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

Browning's  wealth  of  theme,  thought,  and 
knowledge  constitute  the  second  ingredient 
of  his  genius.  To  sit  at  twilight  and  barely- 
run  over  the  titles  of  his  poems,  will  make  you 
query  whether  you  have  not  inadvertently 
named  some  productions  belonging  to  an- 
other. Such  range  of  theme  has  not  been  ap- 
proached by  any  other  poet.  Shakespeare  has 
been  distanced  here.  Browning  seems  an 
eagle  which,  winging  flight  above  the  world, 
saw  all  his  shadow  fell  across.  He  is  as  at 
home  in  history  as  in  his  own  garden.  Nothing 
is  foreign  to  him.  The  Orient,  Greece,  Medi- 
evalism, and  the  nineteenth  century  are  all 
his  home  paths.  "Ferishtah's  Fancies,"  "Ba- 
laustion's  Adventure,"  "Filippo  Baldinucci  on 
the  Privilege  of  Burial,"  "James  Lee's  Wife," 
"Ivan  Ivanovitch,"  are  themes  taken  from  the 
world  and  the  centuries.  He  is  as  much  at 
home  in  Mediaeval  Italy  as  Dante.  He  is 
saturated  with  its  history  as  a  floating  spar 
with  the  salt  seas.  Nor  is  it  outline  he  grasps, 
but  minutiae.  His  knowledge  is  copious  to  the 
point  of  tediousness.  He  has  gone  into  many 
fields;  yet  not  as  gleaner,  but  as  reaper. 
Anachronism  in  the  unessential  there  is  with 
him  as  with  Shakespeare,  but  anachronism  of 


The  Poet's  Poet  23 

spirit  there  is  not.  He  is  the  poet  of  early 
Christianity;  witness,  "Cleon"  as  the  decadence 
of  heathendom  and  philosophy,  and  "The 
Medical  Experience  of  Karshish,"  and  "Death 
in  the  Desert."  He  is  poet  of  the  Jew:  "Saul," 
"Rabbi  ben  Ezra,"  "Jochanan  Hakkadosh," 
"Holy-cross  Day."  He  is  the  poet  of  Prot- 
estantism: "The  Bishop  Orders  his  Tomb," 
"Soliloquy  of  the  Spanish  Cloister,"  "The 
Heretic's  Tragedy,"  "Christmas  Eve,"  and 
"Easter  Morning."  He  is  the  poet  of  music, 
none  like  him,  as  witness  "Master  Hugues  of 
Saxe-Gotha,"  "Abt  Vogler,"  "A  Toccata  of 
Galuppi's."  He  understood  music  in  a  pro- 
found fashion,  as  a  study  of  these  poems  will 
testify.  He  is  the  poet  of  painting:  "Pictor 
Ignotus,"  "Fra  Lippo  Lippi,"  "Andrea  del 
Sarto."  He  is  poet  of  history,  as  you  may 
see:  "Protus,"  "Strafford,"  "Luria,"  "Clive," 
"King  Victor  and  King  Charles."  He  is 
the  poet  of  the  heart,  as  testify  "Colombe's 
Birthday,"  "A  Soul's  Tragedy,"  "In  a  Bal- 
cony," "Blot  in  a  'Scutcheon,"  "La  Saisiaz." 
He  is  poet  of  the  intellect:  "Sordello"  is  the 
poet,  "Paracelsus"  is  the  student;  and  all  he 
has  written  is  interpenetrated  by  the  largest 
intellectuality.     And  he  is  specially  the  poet 


24  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

of  our  own  century.  A  stream  will  glass  every 
form  of  bird  or  cloud  which  floats  above  it: 
so  Browning  glasses  our  century.  Its  pro- 
foundest  life  is  what  he  handles:  its  profound- 
est  problems  he  probes.  He  knows  the  ques- 
tions of  the  centuries  are  the  same;  but  that 
the  age  gives  color  to  the  immortal  queries  as 
cathedral  windows  to  white  light.  So  we  may 
safely  call  Browning  the  profoundest  philos- 
opher of  our  era,  and  the  exponent  of  its- 
largest  life.  Even  this  imperfect  statement  will 
make  plain  that  he  is  universal  in  theme  and 
knowledge.  Besides,  in  this  treatment  is  noth- 
ing superficial.  His  thought  digs  deep.  Who 
follows  the  movement  of  his  sword  must  have 
a  quick  eye,  and  who  gets  not  lost  nor  be- 
wildered in  following  this  poet  must  be  pos- 
sessed of  an  intellect  singularly  acute. 

Browning  is  always  dramatic,  and  has  writ- 
ten the  solitary  great  tragedies  since  Shake- 
speare. Burns  is  always  lyric,  Keats  narrative, 
Wordsworth  didactic,  but  Browning  invari- 
ably dramatic.  His  instinct  is  the  actor's. 
His  lyrics,  with  few  exceptions,  are  dialogues. 
He  dubbed  himself, 

"Robert  Browning,  writer  of  plays." 


The  Poet's  Poet  25, 

And  in  such  monologues  as  the  Pope's  in 
"The  Ring  and  the  Book,"  he  carries  on  dia- 
logue with  himself.  In  this  poet  we  are  never 
spectators:  we  are  participants.  His  narrative 
poem,  "Flight  of  the  Duchess,"  is  practically 
dramatic  as  "Pippa  Passes."  The  energies 
of  a  mighty  age  this  poet  preserved  in  dramas, 
which,  while  not  adapted  to  the  theater,  are 
greatly  adapted  to  the  human  soul.  "In  an 
Inn  Album"  is  as  black  with  hypocrisy  as 
Iago.  "In  a  Balcony"  is  steeped  in  love  as 
Merchant  of  Venice.  "Pippa  Passes"  is  as 
graphic  a  study  of  conscience  as  Macbeth. 
"Blot  in  a  'Scutcheon"  is  tragic  as  Romeo  and 
Juliet.  "A  Soul's  Tragedy"  is  penetrative  in 
insight  into  character  as  Hamlet's  dissection 
of  motive  and  character  of  King  Claudius. 
"Colombe's  Birthday"  is  as  lovely  a  comedy 
as  the  Tempest.  And  as  part  of  this  dramatic 
equipment,  mention  humor.  Nature  mixes 
smiles  and  tears.  Laughter  is  native  to  us  as 
weeping.     Mrs.  Browning  mentions  how  babes 

"Smile  in  sleep  when  wondered  at  for  smiling." 

Humor  imports  laughter.  Shakespeare 
was  prince  of  humorists,  as  he  was  prince  of 
poets;  and  there  is  ever  a  smile  lurking  in  his 


26  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Otter  Essays 

eyes,  even  when  they  are  filled  with  tears. 
Jack  Falstaff  is  the  merriest  jester  artist  ever 
created.  His  braggart  speech  and  impudent 
lying  do  us  good  as  a  medicine.  He  is  Shake- 
speare's extravaganza;  but  in  some  form, 
humor  is  on  every  page.  It  stands  close  even 
to  the  grave.  But  Browning  is  no  humorist 
to  depict  a  Falstaff.  His  is  rather  the  humor 
of  Hamlet,  biting  as  the  night  air  on  the  mid- 
night terrace  of  Elsinore.  Browning  is  ironist. 
He  will  laugh,  shame  things  out  of  the  world 
as  Cervantes  did;  for  there  is  no  arguing  down 
laughter.  "Mr.  Sludge  the  Medium,"  if 
viewed  as  a  piece  of  irony,  is  captivating.  Had 
Stedman  taken  that  view,  he  would  not  prob- 
ably have  excoriated  this  scene  as  he  did. 
Browning  deals  in  the  grotesque.  "Fra  Lippo 
Lippi"  is  as  shrewd  humor  as  lives.  Because 
the  poet  does  not  hold  his  sides  in  laughter, 
we  are  not  to  suppose  he  never  cracks  a  joke. 
He  is  as  a  Scotchman  who  jests,  but  does  not 
laugh.  His  humor  is  not  rollicking  like  that 
of  the  king's  fool;  is  not  hilarious  like  Hosea 
Biglow,  nor  genial  as  in  Charles  Lamb;  but 
neither  is  it  saturnine  as  in  Swift.  Browning 
satirizes  folly.  He  will  show  the  ludicrousness 
of  pretense  and  hypocrisies.     "The  Ring  and 


The  Poet's  Poet  27 

the  Book"  is  full  of  the  most  delicious  humor. 
On  the  way  from  or  to  tragedy  he  will  have 
folly  make  itself  a  laughing  stock.  "Up  at  a 
Villa,"  "Down  in  the  City," are  straightly funny, 
and  "Holy-cross  Day"  is  riotously  grotesque, 
Browning  is  psychologist.  His  theme  is 
soul.  He  is  not  dealing  with  surfaces,  but 
with  the  deeps.  He  works  from  within  out; 
is  no  painter,  but  binds  soul  on  the  rack,  and 
makes  it  tell  its  secrets.  Study  Browning  al- 
ways from  this  point  of  view,  if  you  would 
comprehend  him.  Note  you,  he  will  take 
classic  themes,  but  never  to  treat  them  as  other 
poets  do — give  a  look  at  their  ravishing  my- 
thology. Bayard  Taylor's  "Hylas,"  Keats's 
"Hyperion,"  Swinburne's  "Atalanta  in  Caly- 
don,"  Tennyson's  ''Ulysses"  and  "iEnone," 
represent  the  current  method,  and  bewitching 
it  is;  but  Browning  will  pass  the  mythology 
element  by  unheeded,  and  supply  a  study  of 
motive.  What  a  study  "Cleon"  is!  Look  at 
his  "Echetlos,"  the  unnamed  warrior  of  Mara- 
thon, or  "Pheidippides,"  the  annunciator  of 
Marathon's  victory.  He  looks  not  so  much 
on  the  laughing  waters  of  the  seas  as  he  sounds 
the  depths.  I  know  not  any  poet  who  attempts 
doing  in  psychological  studies  what  Browning 


28  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

does.  Caliban  is  a  study  in  anthropomorphism 
bewilderingly  great.  "Bishop  Blougram's 
Apology"  is  a  study  of  an  unexpected  sort. 
''Experience  of  Karshish"  is  profound. 
"Death  on  a  Desert"  goes  deep  into  the  Chris- 
tian consciousness.  "Saul"  is  a  march  of 
majesty  in  its  exegesis  of  man's  life  in  its  en- 
tirety. "The  Statue  and  the  Bust"  is  a  weird, 
wonderful,  and  solitary  study  of  soul  hunger, 
and  the  teaching  of  the  fable,  if  restricted  to 
the  author's  moral,  is  signal: 

"And  the  sin  I  impute  to  each  frustrate  ghost 
Is  the  unlit  lamp  and  the  ungirt  loin." 

9 

A  flower  blooms  because  the  secret  of 
bloom  is  at  its  heart.  Blossom  is  native 
speech.  Browning  is  as  exactly  natural  because 
in  him  the  life  of  the  soul  speaks.  His  exacti- 
tude of  utterance  grows  on  you.  That  one 
man  could  have  thrown  himself  into  so  many 
souls,  and  have  spoken  their  speech  with  never 
a  failure  of  tone,  is  the  marvel  pre-eminent  of 
Robert  Browning.  It  is  the  heart  he  speaks 
for.  The  most  intellectual  of  poets,  he  is  yet 
because  of  deep  insight  into  the  soul  the  apos- 
tle of  the  heart.  All  life's  fire  burns  hot  in 
him:  life  as  a  whole  shall  be  his  theme.     The 


The  Poet's  Poet  29 

purely  intellectual  will  delight  him  like  moon- 
rise.  "The  Grammarian's  Funeral"  speaks  for 
the  scholar,  as  Tennyson's  "Ulysses"  for  the 
warrior.  Aspiration  finds  a  voice  in  "Rudel 
to  a  Lady  of  Tripoli."  In  Emerson,  the  cultur- 
istic  element  has  quenched  the  fire  of  poetry, 
so  that  his  poems  are  gray  ashes.  In  Matthew 
Arnold,  poetry  dried  Up,  an  exhausted  fountain. 
With  Browning,  intellectuality,  splendid  as  a 
midday  sun,  was  found  to  be  consonant  with 
heart,  which  spake  for  the  race  of  women  and 
of  men.  Love  has  had  few  special  pleaders 
like  Robert  Browning. 

And  he  was  distinctively  religious.  Moun- 
tain air  is  saturated  with  odors  of  the  pine,  but 
not  more  so  than  Browning's  poetry  with  the 
Christian  spirit.  He  is  optimist,  not  because 
he  is  blind,  but  because  he  is  Christian.  He 
saw  the  hills  beyond  the  hills.  He  has  two 
horizons.  He  is  rebel  against  mere  matter. 
He  is  no  agnostic.    In  a  doubt  age  he  was 

"Very  sure  of  God." 

He  was  as  a  soldier  in  the  midst  of  battle: 
unperturbed,  even  triumphant. 

"God  rules  in  his  heaven, 
All 's  right  in  the  world," 


3°  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

is  what  Pippa  sings,  and  is  the  adequate  ex- 
pression of  the  Christian  attitude.  All  he 
wrote  was  flooded  with  immortality,  as  a  lake 
with  silver  when  the  moon  is  risen.  Such  a 
staff  as  "La  Saisiaz"  props  weakness  up  as  if 
it  were  a  ship's  mast  we  leaned  upon. 

"I  but  open  my  eyes — and  perfection,  no  more  and 

no  less, 
In  the  kind  I   imagined  full  fronts  me,  and  God 

is  seen  God 
In  the  star,  in  the  stone,  in  the  flesh,  in  the  soul, 

and  the  clod." 

"Saul"  is  the  philosophy  of  the  Christian 
life.  Tennyson  is  theist;  Browning,  Christ-ist. 
Christ  is  omnipresent  in  Robert  Browning. 

And  Browning  is  an  inspirer.  The  noblest 
form  of  literature  is  inspirational.  Encyclo- 
paedia knowledge  is  primary  and  puissant  in 
its  way,  but  gropes  along  a  narrow  way.  It 
lacks  outlook.  It  is  where  a  voice  calls  me  to 
lift  eyes  from  my  common  task  that  the  voice 
becomes  potential  and  useful.  Wordsworth 
says  of  Milton's  sonnet,  "In  his  hand  the  thing 
became  a  trumpet." 

And  this  characteristic  must  appear  in  all 
true  poetry:  it  inspires.  Nor  must  this  uplift 
be  translated  with  dull  literality.     It   means 


The  Poet's  Poet  31 

much,  and  its  fingers  sweep  many  keys.  A 
great  idea  startles,  arouses  by  sheer  majesty. 
From  such  comes  intellectual  uplift.  To  look 
at  a  thought,  be  it  cold  as  the  dreary  North, 
is  an  inspiration  not  to  be  undervalued.  Its 
labor  is  eventful  in  human  life.  A  great 
thought,  whatever  its  compass,  must  charm 
like  the  sound  of  a  lover's  lute.  Some 
thoughts  uplift  by  their  beauty.  Calm  as  even- 
ing, or  full  of  life  as  a  rippling,  flashing  tide 
breaking  in  music  on  the  shore,  with  beauty 
for  a  possession,  there  is  uplift  for  the  soul. 
Some  thoughts  have  elevation  and  catholicity, 
which  upbear  as  the  sea  a  vessel's  bulk,  seem- 
ing to  touch  every  faculty  of  the  soul,  and 
possessing  power  of  penetration  and  diffusion. 
This  effect  is  indescribable,  but  perceptible 
and  blessed.  In  such  qualities  lies  inspira- 
tional value.  I  make  high  claim  for  Brown- 
ing here.  His  verse  is  often  as  the  hills  he 
graphically  describes, 

"Short,  sharp,  broken  like  an  old  lion's  cheek  teeth:" 

yet  the  thinker  can  but  be  inspired  by  the 
omnipresence  of  thought.  Some,  even  much 
of  his  verse  is  as  the  verse  of  Edward  Lear — 
having  a  profounder  meaning  than  appears  to 


32  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

a  casual  reader.  Literary  opaqueness  is  not  to 
be  construed  as  depth,  but  depth  there  may 
be  despite  literary  opaqueness.  Browning  has 
both  the  one  and  the  other.  His  poems  grow 
on  us  as  Nature  does.  No  man  can  measure 
their  full  mass  at  once.  There  is  always,  I 
may  say,  the  impression  of  an  unsuspected 
reserve  of  power,  thought,  feeling,  and  beauty. 
One  cares  to  reread,  to  go  over  and  over,  as  he 
retraces  a  path  in  a  fair  woodland  by  a  brook 
in  autumn.  Some  of  his  poems  seem  huge 
boulders,  flung  to  lie  jagged  and  massive  in 
their  imperial  strength:  others  the  tenderest 
speech  of  an  o'er  tender  heart ;  and  others  ap- 
pear the  stride  of  a  conquering  faith. 

In  poetry,  the  two  high  peaks  of  the  Vic- 
torian era  are  Tennyson  and  Browning. 
These  two  are  masters.  Two  men  could  not 
differ  more  in  nature  or  technique.  Each  is 
a  poet :  each  is  great :  each  knows  what  strings 
have  music  in  them.  Neither  is  a  Swinburne, 
whose  poetry  is  mostly  exoteric.  They  have 
the  subtle,  incommunicable  insight  compel- 
ling poetry,  which  seizes  the  faculties  of  the 
soul,  and  uses  them  as  Apollo  the  reed  he 
holds.  Poetry  with  Tennyson  is  not  mere 
form:    it    is    essence.      Perfect    in    metrical 


The  Poet's  Poet  33 

mechanism,  the  poet's  thought  is  more  perfect 
still.  Tennyson  and  Browning  are  contem- 
poraries fit  to  be  intrusted  with  the  destiny  of 
the  imperial  English  speech  for  half  a  century. 
These  are  poets,  with  the  word  underscored  as 
words  in  a  girl's  letter.  Tennyson's  ear  is  as 
swift  to  detect  a  rhythmic  inaccuracy  as  a 
musician  to  discover  discord.  He  gives  to  his 
poetic  thought  a  perfect  setting.  He  will  make 
thought  and  expression  twin  perfections.  He 
will  have  the  rhythmic  bark  to  which  he  in- 
trusts his  thought  to  float  as  gently  as  the  boat 
that  bears  sweet,  dead  Elaine  into  her  lover's 
presence.  Browning  submerges,  loses  himself 
in  his  thought.  He  is  as  if  intoxicated  with 
his  conception.  He  must  catch  the  perishable, 
vanishing  form  of  beauty,  and  hold  it  at  what- 
ever hazard.  He  is  an  artist  who  sees  the  day 
go  to  his  burial  with  such  impressive  obse- 
quies as  that  he  feels  himself  frenzied  lest  he 
should  lose  one  glorious  recollection;  and  so 
his  brush  dashes  color  on  the  canvas  with  the 
mad  haste  of  a  Turner.  He  must  hold  the 
hastening  glory.  Browning  has  no  eye  for 
mere  form;  he  ignores,  despises  it.  He  thinks 
the  greater  must  master.  He  feels  that  the 
thought   burning   like   a   furnace   within   him 


34  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

will  commend  itself  to  men  despite  its  setting. 
The  gem  with  him  is  all:  the  setting  is  of  lesser 
consequence.  So,  briefly,  these  men  differ: 
but  it  is  no  purpose  of  mine  to  draw  a  com- 
parison between  them.  They  need  reading, 
not  comparing.  Each  in  his  hemisphere  flames 
like  Orion. 

Aside  from  Shakespeare,  I  have  read  no 
poet  who  inspires  as  Browning.  His  ver- 
satility; his  range  of  theme;  his  profound  eru- 
dition; his  faculty  of  making  himself  at  home 
in  every  age;  his  ability  to  seize  the  salient 
points  in  soul  experience;  his  delineations, 
acid  yet  apt  as  photography;  his  vision  from 
which  no  spirit  can  hide  its  secrets;  his  evident 
joy  in  life  as  life;  his  unrest  with  the  visible 
and  tangible;  and  his  firm  grasp  on  the  invis- 
ible and  intangible,  which  gives  them  back  to 
us  the  sure  realities  of  human  experience;  the 
buoyancy  of  faith  which  sees  doubts,  but 
plumes  flight  to  soar  above  them;  his  love, 
deep,  abiding,  tender;  his  manhood,  unsullied 
and  serene;  his  copiousness  of  genius  and  exe- 
cution, which  reminds  us  of  the  affluence  that 
feeds  the  Rhine — these  combine  to  make  this 
poet  in  his  work  and  in  himself  an  inspiration. 
At  many  points  he  reminds  us  of  Shakespeare, 


The  Poet's  Poet  35 

At  other  points  he  has  done  larger  things  than 
this  chief.  Shakespeare  is  superior  in  deline- 
ating woman  as  a  lover;  but  in  her  profoundest 
life — namely,  religious  vision,  fidelity,  and  hero- 
ism— he  is  lacking.  In  not  any  of  his  women 
has  he  touched  this  splendid  possibility.  There 
are  about  him  limitations,  perhaps  those  of 
his  century;  but  one  rises  from  the  contem- 
plation of  Shakespeare's  women,  first  and  last, 
with  the  sense  of  lack  upon  him.  It  is  not  so 
in  Browning.  He  glasses  woman's  largest  life. 
He  misses  no  element  of  power,  and  in  par- 
ticular does  he  not  miss  the  chief  fact  of  soul. 
Shakespeare  has  no  such  wpman  as  Pompilia; 
indeed,  universal  literature  has  not  her  like. 
She  is  the  noblest  female  figure  given  us  by 
creative  genius.  Browning  has  given  us  life- 
sized  woman.  She  has  a  lover;  but  she  has  her 
babe  and  her  God.  The  lover  as  in  Miranda 
and  Jessica,  the  wife  as  in  Imogen  and  Desde- 
mona — are  adequate;  but  Shakespeare  has 
scarcely  given  us  an  ideal  mother,  while 
woman,  the  devotee  of  duty,  is  hinted  in  Cor- 
delia; and  woman,  the  worshiper,  is  not  so 
much  as  mentioned.  Hamlet  is  the  profound- 
est study  literature  has  produced  of  the  sou} 
longing  for  divine  verities;  but  Hamlet  has 


3^  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

no  counterpart  in  Shakespeare's  women.  But 
Pompilia  might  pass  for  Hamlet's  sister,  save 
that  she  sees  God,  while  Hamlet  died  groping 
for  the  curtain,  and  not  even  with  convulsive 
dying  grasp  pulled  it  from  between  God's  face 
and  him. 

In  Browning,  we  feel  adequacy  of  treatment, 
from  which  comes  inspiration.  No  one  can 
be  inspired,  except  under  the  sense  of  a  deed 
adequately  performed.  When  in  history  or 
fiction  we  behold  a  heroism,  we  rise  from  the 
study  inspired  because  the  character  measured 
up  to  the  occasion.  For  this  reason,  Hall 
Caine's  Red  Jason,  Dickens's  Sidney  Car- 
ton, Thackeray's  Henry  Esmond,  Hugo's 
Jean  Valjean,  Tennyson's  King  Arthur, 
take  the  soul  by  storm.  And  Browning  is 
adequate.  "The  Ring  and  the  Book,"  "Pippa 
Passes,"  "Blot  in  the  'Scutcheon,"  "La  Sais- 
iaz,"  "The  Grammarian's  Funeral,"  and 
"Saul"  burn  themselves  in  the  soul,  because 
we  feel  them  equal  to  the  occasion.  The  artist 
executed  the  task  he  undertook.  Genius  and 
task  were  met.  In  reading,  two  phases  of  in- 
spirational value  present  themselves — the  frag- 
mentary and  the  entire.  Some  authors  excel 
in  splinters  of  inspiration.     Such  works  lend 


The  Poet's  Poet  37 

themselves  easily  to  an  anthology.  Shake- 
speare has  some  plays  specially  rich  in  quot- 
able passages  of  beauty,  excerptible  patches  of 
sunlight.  Richard  II  and  Merchant  of  Ven- 
ice have  many  such ;  but  the  value  of  the  whole 
is  not  in  necessary  ratio  to  the  value  of  these 
fragments.  In  other  Shakespearean  plays  there 
are  few  distinct,  isolated  beauties,  while  the 
whole  makes  a  living  majesty.  Tennyson 
abounds  in  passages  of  beauty  so  rare  that  one 
finds  it  all  but  impossible  to  go  on  with  the 
reading.  He  is  as  a  traveler  who,  on  the  way 
to  some  vantage  ground  of  vision,  finds  him- 
self hindered  or  halted  at  every  step  by  reit- 
erated beauties.  Who  that  marks  passages  of 
special  loveliness  does  not  find  "Idyls  of  the 
King"  one  continuous  marginal  annotation? 
But  in  the  main  the  chief  afflatus  of  "Paradise 
Lost"  springs  from  the  mass  of  that  imposing 
epic.  Some  poems  inspire  us  like  the  bulk 
of  a  mountain;  we  forget  the  separate  ele- 
ments, lost  in  presence  of  the  whole.  Now, 
Browning  is  inspiring  for  both  causes  men- 
tioned. Irregular  he  is ;  but  it  is  never  well  to 
sleep  while  reading  him;  for,  when  least  you 
think  it,  he  will  reward  your  waking  with  an 
apocalypse.      Who    sleeps    when    journeying 


.0441 


38  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

through  Switzerland?  But  I  would  feel  less 
loss  were  mine  in  such  a  slumber  than  to 
drowse  while  passing  over  a  tract  of  Brown- 
ing's poetry.  In  him,  the  whole  always  throws 
its  shadow  across  the  path.  I  know  not  one  of 
his  poems  which  does  not  leave  some  thought 
or  question  insistent  in  the  mind.  Treasures 
worth  a  king's  ransom  are  here.  He  is  full 
of  beauty  like  the  spring,  and  big  with  eleva- 
tion. I  account  it  one  of  life's  rare  delights 
to  go  aside  with  this  Christian  prophet.  He 
girds  me  with  strength.  In  his  company  (to 
use  his  own  words)  I  am 

"Stung  with  the  splendor  of  a  sudden  thought," 

and  feel 

"Why  stay  we  on  the  earth  except  to  grow?" 

And  viewing  Robert  Browning,  the  poet's 
poet,  as  we  would  view  a  mountain  we  had 
climbed,  what  truer  and  more  gracious  words 
for  the  expression  of  our  thought  than  these 
borrowed  from  Keats's  immortal  sonnet? 

"Then  felt  I  like  some  watcher  of  the  skies 
When  a  new  planet  swims  into  his  ken; 
Or  like  stout  Cortes  when,  with  eagle  eyes, 
He  stared  at  the  Pacific." 


King  Cromwell 

Fellowship  with  great  ideas  amplifies  the 
soul.  The  study  of  a  sunset  or  a  mountain  or 
the  sea  exalts  him  who  studies.  Great  ideas 
are  the  heritage  of  the  human  mind.  But  a 
man  is  always  greater  than  any  material  thing. 
The  spiritual  always  dwarfs  the  physical.  The 
mountain,  lifting  forehead  to  the  heavens,  is 
less  a  giant  than  the  man  who  stands  at  its 
far  base  and  computes  its  altitude.  The  loco- 
motive, with  its  ponderous  complexity,  is  sim- 
plicity and  commonplaceness  as  compared 
with  Stephenson,  who  created  the  iron  mon- 
ster and  governs  its  goings.  The  ocean,  that 
home  of  slumbering  storms  and  wrathful  tem- 
pests, that  symbol  of  infinity  and  omnipo- 
tence,— the  ocean  is  not  so  great  as  the  dreamy 
man  who  stands  upon  its  shore  and  meditates 
its  mastery.  Columbus  is  greater  than  the 
great  Atlantic. 

A  man  is  an  aggregation  of  ideas.  He 
embodies  some  movement;  is  the  amplifica- 
tion of  some  concept.  He  is,  therefore,  of 
supreme  importance  to  the  world.    He  is,  by 

39 


4°  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

virtue  of  his  greatness,  passed  into  the  circu- 
lating medium  of  the  intellectual  realm,  and 
is  not  to  be  underrated.  To  study  him  is  not 
servility  nor  hero  worship,  but  is  wisdom  and 
honest  dealing  with  one's  own  life.  Show  me 
greatness,  and  you  have  made  me  your  debtor. 
To  be  associated  with  the  colossal  elevates  the 
spirit.  This  is  a  common  fact  of  intellectual 
history.  Every  man  who  has  lifted  himself 
from  the  low  levels,  where  he  found  his  life 
groveling,  knows  that  except  he  had  touched 
the  hem  of  greatness'  garment,  he  had  never 
arisen  even  to  his  little  height. 

Cromwell  was  a  great  soul.  Near  him  I 
feel  as  if  I  stood  within  the  shadow  of  a  pyra- 
mid. The  day  is  gone  when  men  wrangled 
over  his  greatness.  If  any  man  call  the  roll  of 
imperial  genius,  be  sure  the  name  of  Oliver 
Cromwell  will  be  there.  His  burly  figure 
stalks  across  every  stage  where  genius  doth 
appear.  There  are  some  men  who  are  locally 
great.  Their  genius  is  provincial.  They  be- 
long to  vicinities.  Close  at  hand  they  seem 
men  of  mighty  stature;  far  removed  they  ap- 
pear as  pigmies  on  the  plain.  To  this  class 
most  men  of  note  belong.  They  have  their 
day.    They  serve  their  generation.    Their  serv- 


King  Cromwell  4* 

ice  to  the  world  is  not  to  be  underrated.  With- 
out them  history  would  indeed  suffer  loss. 
And  yet  their  speech  is  not  a  world  speech, 
nor  are  they  world  figures. 

There  are  other  men  who  have  no  marks  of 
provincialism,  either  in  speech  or  look.  They 
have  hung  their  blazing  orbs  so  high  as  to 
have  become  the  luminaries  of  the  world. 
Their  glory  is  so  illustrious  that  all  men  count 
them  stars  of  the  first  magnitude.  They  have 
"become  a  name."  The  earth  esteems  their 
fame  a  precious  heritage.  To  this  decimated 
list  the  name  of  Cromwell  belongs.  However 
much  men  differ  in  their  estimates  of  his  char- 
acter, there  is  practically  no  differing  on  the 
question  of  his  genius.  There  is  a  unanimity 
of  sentiment  here,  which  must  strike  every 
reader  of  biography  and  history  with  delighted 
surprise. 

Gladstone  ranks  Cromwell  with  Charle- 
magne and  Napoleon.  Clarendon  recognizes 
him  as  no  common  man.  Nicholson  says:  "He 
was  a  man  for  all  ages  to  admire,  for  all  Brit- 
ons to  honor  in  proud  remembrance;"  and 
adds:  "No  royal  name,  at  least  since  Alfred's, 
is  more  worthy  of  our  veneration  than  that  of 
the    usurper,    Oliver    Cromwell."      Thurloe, 


42  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

Cromwell's  Secretary  of  State,  himself  nc 
mean  figure,  declares,  "A  greater  soul  never 
dwelt  among  men.'"'  Goldwin  Smith  says,  "A 
greater  proof  of  practical  capacity  was  never 
given."  Macaulay  calls  him  "the  most  pro- 
found politician  of  his  age,"  and  says:  "Such 
was  his  genius  and  resolution  that  he  was  able 
to  overpower  and  crush  everything  that 
crossed  his  path,  and  to  make  himself  more 
absolute  master  of  his  country  than  any  of  her 
legitimate  kings  had  been."  Cardinal  Mazarin 
gave  his  grudging  but  incontestable  testimony 
to  the  Protector's  greatness,  in  that  he  "feared 
Cromwell  more  than  he  feared  the  devil,  and 
changed  color  at  the  mention  of  his  name." 
The  above  remark  will  have  the  more  signifi- 
cance if  it  be  remembered  that  the  cardinal 
had  a  lively  belief  in  a  personal  devil;  and  his 
life  was  such  that  it  can  not  be  doubted  he  had 
a  wholesome  fear  of  him.  Guizot,  who  can 
not  be  classed  among  Cromwell's  panegyrists, 
pays  this  tribute  to  him:  "He  is,  perhaps,  the 
only  example  which  history  affords  of  one  man 
having  governed  the  most  opposite  events,  and 
proved  sufficient  for  the  most  various  des- 
tinies." This  list  of  testimonials  to  the  great- 
ness of  the  man  Cromwell  may  well  close  with 


King  Cromwell  43 

the  phrase  of  Carlyle.  To  him,  among  his 
heroes,  he  is  "Great  Cromwell."  And,  indeed, 
there  is  no  assignable  reason  why  this  man 
should  not  be  placed  in  the  list  with  a  Great 
Frederick  and  a  Great  Charles.  By  right  of 
his  genius,  he  may  well  be  named  Cromwell 
the  Great. 

If  I  am  told  that  the  man  about  to  come 
upon  the  stage  is  one  who  founded  empires, 
wore  a  crown  of  more  than  royal  splendor, 
won  plaudits  from  unwilling  lips — and  if  such 
a  man  come,  can  it  be  otherwise  than  that  I 
shall  view  him  with  attentive  vision,  even  with 
my  soul  in  my  eyes!  Behold,  Cromwell  is 
here ! 

He  is  five  feet  ten  inches  high.  He  is  broad, 
burly,  and  half-clad  in  mail.  A  huge  head, 
"fit  to  be  the  workshop  of  vast  matters,"  is 
planted  on  his  shoulders.  He  is  fiery,  fierce, 
brave  as  Achilles,  yet  tender  as  a  woman.  His 
is  an  English  face.  No  perfumed  Adonis  he; 
no  fine-cut  Greek  features — a  Briton  all  and 
all.  No  man  can  well  mistake  this  man's  na- 
tionality. He  looks  of  the  race  which  pro- 
duced him;  eyes  that  look  into  things  and  be- 
yond them;  silent,  melancholic,  fitted  for  a 
soldier  in  a  world's  battle.    He  seemed  a  tower 


44  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

which  it  were  folly  to  attempt  to  storm ;  a  bolt 
shot  from  a  thunder-cloud,  impossible  to  re- 
sist; a  sphinx  riddle,  no  man  could  solve;  a 
secret  that  must  die  untold;  a  man  you  would 
turn  to  look  upon  when  you  pass,  not  know- 
ing why  you  looked.  The  Puritan  soldier  and 
prince  has  come.     Look! 

Cromwell  was  born  in  1599.  As  Carlyle 
has  finely  said,  he  was  "always  a  year  older 
than  his  century."  Four  years  later,  Elizabeth 
died,  and  the  Tudors  were  but  a  name  in  his- 
tory. He  was  born  during  a  lull  in  national 
affairs,  which  was  the  calm  before  the  fury- 
burst  of  the  tempest.  His  life  began  on  the 
verge  of  such  a  precipice  that  "the  murmuring 
surge  that  on  the  unnumbered  idle  pebbles 
chafes,  could  not  be  heard  so  high" — a  sheer 
leap  down  into  a  seething  sea  of  war,  of  an- 
archy, of  blood.  His  life  was  an  arch  which 
spans  the  chasm  between  two  dynasties.  His- 
tory has  shown  that  he  lived  in  a  crisis,  and 
was  a  man  born  for  crucial  moments  in  the 
chemistry  of  nations.  Some  men  are  fitted 
for  epoch  making — sinewy  to  withstand  the 
fury  of  tremendous  onset.  Athanasius,  Savon- 
arola, Luther,  Cromwell,  Pym,  Lincoln — these 


King  Cromwell  45 

men  seem  molded  in  colossal  matrices  for  un- 
usual service  and  superior  destinies. 

Cromwell  was  well  born;  not  greatly  born. 
Here  is  a  wise  distinction  nature  makes,  and 
men  might  well  mark.  He  was  not  plebeian, 
was  not  prince.  The  blood  of  Scotch  royalty 
flowed  through  his  veins,  and  the  strength  of 
English  yeomanry  was  latent  in  his  arm. 
Through  and  through,  he  was  a  representative 
of  the  land  of  his  nativity.  He  was  of  the  mid- 
dle rank,  which  has  made  England  what  Eng- 
land is.  He  was  a  farmer,  a  cattle-breeder,  a 
soldier  cast  in  nobler  than  Roman  mold.  He 
was  a  man  of  college  training,  by  forecast  a 
lawyer:  by  providence  and  fealty  to  duty,  a 
farmer,  a  general,  a  statesman,  a  king. 

Every  man's  genius  is  colored  by  his  age. 
His  environment  does  not  control,  but  does 
put  its  stamp  upon  his  destiny.  The  image  and 
superscription  of  genius  is  imprinted  by  the 
age  which  produces  the  man.  Few  men  are  to 
be  understood  apart  from  their  times.  We  must 
study  the  topography  of  genius,  if  we  would 
comprehend  the  achievements  of  generals  and 
the  utterances  of  kings.  If  you  will  rehearse 
to  me  the  story  of  Prometheus,  tell  me  not 


4-6  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

only  his  name  and  fame,  but  that  a  black, 
scarred  crag  of  the  Caucasus  held  him,  that 
the  vultures  gnawed  at  his  vitals,  that  light- 
nings hurled  their  gleaming  spears  about  his 
head,  and  thunders  made  his  lonely  citadel  of 
pain  to  rock  like  fisher's  bark  on  tempest- 
drenched  seas.  These  things,  the  dire  acces- 
sories of  woe,  are  necessities  for  the  compre- 
hension of  the  Titan  tale.  So  of  Moses,  I 
must  know  not  only  who,  but  where:  Egypt, 
born  of  a  slave,  adopted  by  a  queen,  learned 
in  all  the  knowledge  of  that  wisest  land,  a 
king's  heir,  self-exiled  from  the  throne,  lone 
Midian  with  its  wandering  flock,  the  sea  passed 
through  dry-shod,  the  desert,  Sinai,  the  law, 
Pisgah,  Nebo — all  these  things  must  be  told 
ere  I  can  comprehend  the  life  of  the  chiefest 
legislator  of  the  world. 

So  must  I  understand  the  times  in  which 
this  man  Cromwell  wrought  if  I  would  com- 
prehend his  achievements.  Born  in  Eliza- 
beth's reign!  What  a  heyday  of  glory!  What 
glamour  clings  about  those  days!  Chivalry, 
romance,  Raleigh,  Leicester,  din  of  arms, 
shout  of  victory,  crash  of  Armadas,  and 
through  all  haughty-faced,  golden-haired  Eliz- 
abeth,  standing  an   omnipresent  personality! 


King  Cromwell  47 

How  these  incongruities  become  congruous 
when  seen  in  those  historic  times!  But  we 
must  look  into  these  things  more  narrowly. 
Students  of  history  must  look  through  appear- 
ances into  realities.  Elizabeth's  age  was  an 
age  of  incomplete  reformation,  of  decaying 
chivalry,  of  commerce  and  colonization,  of 
surprising  energy  and  action,  which  produced 
the  drama.  These  points  summarize  the  dis- 
tinctive features  of  the  Elizabethan  era.  Look 
at  them  briefly. 

The  Reformation  had  no  stronger  or  more 
virulent  opposer  than  Henry  VIII.  He  loved 
a  woman  not  his  wife,  and  wished  to  divorce 
his  queen.  Rome  would  not  grant  the  king's 
desire,  whereupon  Henry  denied  Papal  su- 
premacy. He  married  Annie  Boleyn,  and 
introduced  the  Reformation;  but  such  a  dis- 
torted semblance  as  to  be  scarcely  recogniz- 
able. The  Reformation  came  to  England  to 
gratify  the  lust  of  a  lecherous  king.  The  new 
Church  differed  from  the  old  in  one  regard. 
In  the  old,  the  Pope  was  supreme;  in  the  new, 
the  king  was  supreme.  King  and  Pope  were 
combined  in  a  single  person.  Here  was  the 
union  of  Church  and  State.  It  must  be  ap- 
parent that  a  change  made  for  such  reasons, 


4-8  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

and  continued  under  such  forms,  must  be  a 
thing  from  which  pure  men  would  revolt. 
Elizabeth  sustained  the  same  relation  to  the 
Church  as  had  her  father.  With  her  the 
Church  was  a  subordinate  department  of  State. 
She  was  Protestant  by  circumstances.  Her 
conscience  was  no  active  member  of  the  Royal 
Council.  She  was  head  of  the  Protestant 
powers  of  Europe  more  as  a  matter  of  policy 
than  religion.  Indeed,  to  speak  with  even 
reasonable  accuracy,  she  was  such  solely  for 
politic  reasons.  It  was,  let  us  say  sadly  but 
with  all  certainty,  an  era  of  incomplete  Refor- 
mation. 

It  was  also  an  age  of  decaying  chivalry. 
The  day  of  chivalry  was  growing  late.  The 
purity  of  knighthood  was  largely  a  departed 
glory.  Instead  of  the  nobility  of  sincerity, 
which  made  beautiful  the  face  and  fame  of 
King  Arthur,  there  was  the  laugh  of  insincer- 
ity and  the  hollowness  of  hypocrisy.  Chivalry 
was  a  dying  splendor.  The  Sidneys  and 
Raleighs  were  a  hopeless  minority.  The  im- 
purity that  blights  was  rife.  The  court  of 
Elizabeth  was  not  the  home  of  a  Christian 
queen.  The  captivating  beauty  of  Spenser's 
"Fairie  Queen"  finds  no  counterpart  in  the 


King  Cromwell  49 

chivalry  of  Elizabeth's  reign.  "False  Duessa" 
of  Spenser's  tale  might  well  stand  as  the  sad 
symbol  of  Elizabethan  chivalry.  Elizabeth 
fostered  hypocrisy.  She  watered  with  her 
woman's  hand  that  upas  tree.  She  smiled  on 
knighthood  kneeling  at  her  throne,  with  lies 
as  black  as  treason  on  the  knight's  lips.  Chiv- 
alry, with  its  storied  purity,  was  not.  The 
Crusader,  whose  heart  was  full  of  nobility,  and 
whose  hand  was  full  of  deeds  of  high  emprise, 
was  dead.  He  slumbered  in  his  grave;  and 
with  him  slept  the  sacred  dust  of  Christian 
chivalry. 

This  was  an  age  of  discovery  and  coloniza- 
tion. The  English  were  beginning  to  guess 
the  secret  of  their  insular  position.  The  sea 
was  beckoning  them  to  sail  beyond  the  sun- 
set. The  fire  that  burned  within  the  life  of  the 
Renaissance  burned  here.  Men  urged  their 
way  along  the  yeasting  seas;  they  longed  to 
sight  new  worlds.  A  Columbus  heart  throbbed 
in  many  a  discoverer's  breast.  They  sought 
new  lands ;  and  new  lands  found  must  be  peo- 
pled. Commerce  must  build  her  metropolis  of 
trade.  Sailors,  soldiers,  settlers,  must  go  to- 
gether. These  were  contemporaries  in  the  new 
land.   Boldness  characterized  the  adventurer  in 

4 


5°  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

Elizabeth's  reign.  She  herself  was  as  brave  as 
Boadicea.  Cowardice  is  not  one  of  Elizabeth's 
sins,  nor  is  it  a  sin  of  her  age.  There  were 
bold  men  in  those  days,  and  they  sailed  to  the 
world's  limit,  and  essayed  to  seize  new  hemi- 
spheres for  England's  supremacy. 

It  was  the  age  of  the  drama.  Those  were 
days  of  action.  Tremendous  and  almost  re- 
sistless energy  was  here.  The  blood  ran  like 
lightning  along  men's  veins.  Magnificent  en- 
ergies were  driving  along  like  a  whirlwind.  It 
was  an  actor's  age.  The  drama  grew  out  of 
the  nature  of  things.  That  species  of  poetry 
grew  in  Greece  when  Athens  was  as  sleepless 
as  the  ocean.  It  is  the  exponent  of  superla- 
tive energy.  In  such  an  atmosphere  the  drama 
grows  to  its  full  height.  In  Elizabeth's  reign 
the  drama  "rose  like  an  exhalation."  In  a 
brief  period  it  grew  to  such  noble  propor- 
tions that  it  might  well  lay  claim  to  have 
wrested  the  scepter  from  the  hand  of  Attica. 
Elizabeth's  age  shows  the  drama  at  its  best; 
since  then  it  has  declined,  a  setting  star. 

In  an  age  marked  with  such  peculiarities, 
Cromwell  was  born.  Elizabeth's  was  essentially 
a  feudal  reign.  The  Tudors  were  a  feudal  house. 
Elizabeth  was  a  feudal  sovereign.    She,  hating 


King  Cromwell  51 

death,  died.  Death  tore  the  scepter  from  her 
hand,  the  purple  from  her  shoulders,  the  crown 
from  her  head;  he  took  her  from  her  throne, 
and  hewed  her  out  a  tomb.  The  Tudors  were 
dead ;  the  Stuarts  were  come.  Strength  was  no 
more.  Weakness  clung  with  timid  fingers  to 
the  royal  prerogatives.  In  1603,  Elizabeth  lay 
dying;  in  1649,  Charles  Stuart's  head  dropped 
on  the  scaffold  at  Whitehall — in  1603,  a  whole 
people  delirious  with  loyalty;  in  1649,  a^  Eng- 
land sullen  with  wrath  that  slew  their  king. 
Truly,  "the  old  order  changes,  giving  place 
to  new."  But  the  change  in  appearance  was 
only  indicative  of  the  change  the  people  had 
undergone.  It  was  a  tide  telling  how  high  the 
sea  had  risen.  We  may  well  challenge  history 
to  show  so  radical  a  change  in  so  brief  a 
period.  It  was  the  sailing  into  a  new,  untried 
sea.  It  was  the  passing  into  a  new  hemi- 
sphere lit  with  new  stars;  into  a  realm  un- 
known, vast,  curtained  with  mystery.  It  was  a 
change  so  entire,  so  unparalleled,  that  no  pre- 
cedent could  be  adduced.  It  was  sailing  when 
chart  and  compass  and  stars  are  gone. 

This  was  not  the  England  of  Elizabeth,  but 
a  new  and  untried  thing.  Hers  was  the  Eng- 
land of  the  cavalier  and  the  Churchman.    This 


52  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

was  the  England  of  the  commoner  and  the 
Puritan.  It  resembled  the  old  order  only  in 
its  possession  of  tremendous  and  resistless  en- 
ergy. The  river  still  plunged  like  a  moun- 
tain torrent  toward  the  sea;  but  the  channels 
were  changed.  Puritanism  was  here.  It  came 
like  an  apparition.  It  stalked  upon  the  stage 
of  human  affairs,  and  men  knew  not  whence 
it  came,  nor  whither  it  hastened.  It  was  a 
strange  thing;  it  was  a  great  thing.  What, 
then,  is  Puritanism?  This  question  needs 
candid  answer.  More,  it  demands  it.  Puri- 
tanism is  not  an  incomprehensible  thing,  but 
is  in  the  main  an  uncomprehended  thing.  Men 
laugh  at  it,  make  their  common  jests  at  its 
expense.  I  had  as  lief  laugh  at  Niagara  or 
the  Matterhorn.  Stupendousness  is  not  a  fit 
subject  for  jest,  nor  sublimity  a  theme  fitting 
the  humorist's  powers;  yet  the  greater  part  of 
men's  knowledge  of  Puritanism  is  that  which 
appertains  to  its  vagaries.  It  had  idiosyn- 
crasies; all  greatness  has.  It  was  not  perfect, 
but  was  such  a  thing  as  towered  immeasurably 
above  all  religious  contemporaries.  In  our 
day,  looking  back  across  that  seventeenth  cen- 
tury plain  crowded  with  armies,  misted  with 
battle-smoke,  tumultuous  with  battle's  din — 


King  Cromwell  53 

looking  back  we  behold  Puritanism  a  peak 
lifting  itself  so  high  into  the  azure  that,  when 
all  else  is  hid,  it  stands  sublime,  a  beacon  to 
the  world.  Puritanism  was  no  tangle  of  incon- 
gruities, no  maze  of  absurdities.  It  was  wise 
above  its  day.  It  was  a  revolt  against  false- 
ness, hollowness,  hypocrisy.  It  was  an  exodus 
of  men  from  an  Egypt  of  falsehood  and  insin- 
cerity into  a  Canaan  of  truth.  It  was  the 
coming  to  the  side  of  truth;  the  taking  stand 
within  the  ranks  of  God. 

As  has  been  shown,  the  Anglican  Church 
was  half  Romanism  and  more.  It  lacked  those 
elements  which  should  characterize  an  ecclesi- 
asticism.  From  such  a  thing  the  Puritans  de- 
parted; and  never  had  a  religious  exodus  more 
justification.  Puritanism  was  an  incarnation 
of  Christian  conscience.  That  is  saying  much, 
but  is  speaking  noble  truth.  True,  it  was  not 
the  genial  and  beautiful  thing  Christ's  man- 
hood was.  They  patterned  rather  after  Moses 
and  Elijah  than  after  Christ.  But  better  Moses 
than  Pharaoh,  better  Elijah  than  Ahab.  Those 
who  can  scarcely  marshal  words  meet  for  the 
task  of  condemning  the  Puritan  severity  of 
morals  and  life,  find  no  difficulty  in  passing 
the  orgies  of  a  brothel  court  of  the  second 


54  The  Poefs  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

Charles  with  a  feeble  and  smiling  condemna- 
tion that  amounts  to  a  magnificat  of  sin.  It 
were  well  to  preserve  at  least  a  semblance  of 
fairness  in  discussing  important  matters.  So 
Puritanism  came.  It  asked  no  man's  leave. 
It  stood  a  stern,  strong,  heroic  thing.  It 
championed  the  cause  of  purity  and  devotion 
to  God.  It  believed  in  the  brotherhood  and 
common  equality  of  man.  It  believed  in  one 
God  and  one  Book.  No  better  and  no  nobler 
tribute  can  be  paid  that  band  of  Christian  men 
and  women  whom  history  names  Puritans  than 
to  say,  as  has  been  said,  "They  were  men  of 
one  Book."  The  Bible  was  their  vade  mecum. 
These  men  possessed  a  devotion  to  duty,  as 
they  apprehended  it,  which  was  as  beautiful 
as  a  mother's  self-sacrifice;  stern  and  pitiless 
as  the  winter's  storm  toward  Romanism  and 
sin  in  any  guise,  but  tender  towards  wife, 
mother,  babe,  as  any  heart  that  ever  beat. 
They  were  knights  in  a  new  and  illustrious 
chivalry.  They  made  battle  for  purity  of 
thought,  lips,  and  life.  My  heart,  as  it  be- 
holds the  Puritan,  cries,  "Hail,  all  hail!" 

This  change  was  great  past  all  belief.  Pray, 
you,  what  caused  it?  But  one  answer  is  pos- 
sible,— the  Bible.     The  Bible  is  a  revolution- 


King  Cromwell  55 

izer.  That  was  the  Book.  Puritanism  pored 
over  it  as  schoolboys  con  their  lessons  with 
bent  heads.  They  were  saturated  with  the 
Bible  thought  and  Bible  phrase.  Their 
thought  framed  itself  to  speech  in  the  Bible 
sentences.  On  Dunbar's  field,  when  mists  be- 
gan to  lift  and  the  battle  came,  Puritan  Crom- 
well cried,  "Let  God  arise,  and  let  his  enemies 
be  scattered."  His  was  the  Puritan  speech. 
His  life  was  molded  by  God's  Book.  With  it 
all  Puritans  held  constant  companionship. 
The  Bible  is  a  renovator.  Let  the  Bible  enter 
any  man's  thought,  and  it  will  ennoble.  Stand 
a  man  face  to  face  with  the  Bible  concepts,  and 
he  will  begin  to  pant  for  room.  It  flings  vast- 
ness  into  his  soul.  The  Bible  begets  a  new 
life.  Puritanism  was  new.  Men  thought  these 
men  monstrosities;  but  they  were  noble  nor- 
malities. There  were  in  them  greatness,  wis- 
dom, goodness.  Looking  at  them,  we  say, 
scarcely  thinking  what  we  utter,  "There  were 
giants  in  those  days." 

Cromwell  was  a  Puritan.  He  was  perme- 
ated with  the  decrees.  His  was  a  bilious  tem- 
perament. He  was  moody,  silent,  brooding, 
melancholy.  All  great  souls  have  melancholy 
hours,    and    know    the    ministry    of    silence. 


56  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

Moses  prepared  for  God's  work  in  the  soli- 
tudes of  Horeb;  and  every  Moses  must  be  girt 
for  his  great  battles  by  the  ministration  of  sub- 
lime silences.  Cromwell,  in  his  fen  lands,  in 
his  silence,  mused  on  God's  Word,  was  con- 
verted, came  into  the  secret  of  the  Divine, 
merged  his  life  into  the  life  of  God,  and  came 
to  be  a  moody  soul  lit  with  resplendent  Bible 
lights.  Who  does  not  comprehend  this  will 
not  comprehend  Cromwell.  The  hieroglyph- 
ics of  this  man's  life  are  not  decipherable  if  a 
man  holds  not  this  key.  He  embodied  Puri- 
tanism. To  know  Milton  and  Cromwell  is  to 
know  Puritanism.  They  are  the  high  tides  of 
that  illustrious  era.  Cromwell  had  seen  false 
chivalry  die;  had  seen  the  true  chivalry  spring 
into  majestic  life;  had  seen  the  Puritan  day 
grow  crimson  with  the  dawn.  He  dwelt  under 
Stuart  tyranny.  That  family  was  weak.  The 
Tudors,  whatever  their  faults — and  they  were 
many — were  strong.  Henry  VII  had  a  giant's 
arm.  He  was  of  kingly  stature  and  imperial 
mold.  Henry  VIII,  libertine  as  he  was,  had 
kingly  powers  and  talent  for  administration 
akin  to  genius.  Even  Mary,  with  her  hands 
dyed  in  martyr's  blood,  was  not  weak.  She 
had    virility    not    wholly    mastered    by    her 


King  Cromwell  57 

woman's  heart.  Her  successor  might  well  be 
named  King  Elizabeth.  She  was  king,  not 
queen.  And  when  the  government  passed 
from  a  royal  line,  whose  powers  and  prowess 
were  manifest,  into  the  hands  of  driveling  in- 
competency and  pedantic  weakness,  the  antith- 
esis was  so  startling  as  to  waken  men  from 
their  quiescent  moods,  till  on  the  lips  of  even 
steadfast  loyalty  there  came  the  unpremedi- 
tated query,  "Why  should  this  weakness  reign 
over  us?" 

Men  will  forgive  much  if  there  be  strength. 
The  French  tolerated  a  Louis  XIV,  and  not 
a  Louis  XVI,  because  the  one  was  strong,  and 
the  other  weak.  They  tolerated  the  adminis- 
tration and  gloried  in  the  rule  of  a  Napoleon,, 
and  dethroned  a  Charles  X,  because  Napo- 
leon, though  a  tyrant,  was  strong;  and  Charles 
was  a  tyrant  and  weak.  The  Stuarts  were 
weak.  There  was  no  strength  among  them. 
Charles  II,  in  spite  of  his  monstrous  vices,  had 
more  of  the  symptoms  of  strength  than  James 
I,  Charles  I,  or  James  II.  James  I  was  a 
pedant,  an  overgrown  schoolboy,  "the  wisest 
fool  in  Christendom."  Charles  I  was  the  crea- 
ture of  favorites,  was  possessed  of  no  gift  of 
comprehending  the  people  whom  he  ruled,  was 


58  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

an  egotist,  and  as  false  as  even  a  king  could 
well  be.     James  II  was  an  intolerant  bigot, 
blind  as  a  mole,  and  so  incapable  of  learning 
that   even  a   scaffold   dyed   with   his   father's 
blood  could  teach  him  no  wisdom.    Such  were 
the  Stuarts.    The  Tudors  had  been  tyrannical, 
but   were   not   pusillanimous   in   their  weak- 
ness.   There  was  no  more  despotism  in  James 
I  than  Elizabeth,  nor  in   Charles   I  than   in 
Henry  VIII;  but  there  was  strength  in  the 
Tudors,   and   only   weakness   in   the   Stuarts. 
They  were  a  puerile  race.    Charles  had  all  the 
Tudor's  pride  and  self-assurance,  with  none 
of  the  Tudor's  astuteness  or  strength ;  and  the 
result  is  what  any  attentive  reader  of  history 
might  forecast.     Men  rebelled.     The  Puritan 
revolution  grew  as  naturally  as  ever  did  the 
wind-flower  or  the  violet. 

Liberty  is  a  perennial  reappearance.  When 
man  thinks  it  dead,  it  but  "mews  its  mighty 
youth."  It  marches  forward  and  upward. 
The  contest  between  cavalier  and  Puritan  was 
liberty's  conflict.  The  battle  belonged,  not  to 
England,  but  to  the  world.  It  was  the  cause 
of  our  common  humanity.  And  Cromwell,  as 
the  leader  in  the  fray,  becomes  a  figure  in 
liberty's  lists,  and  a  character  of  consequence 


King  Cromwell  59 

in  the  history  of  men.  To  every  lover  of  lib- 
erty the  name  of  Oliver  Cromwell  must  have 
in  it  a  deep  and  solemn  music,  like  the  singing 
of  a  psalm.  Liberty's  battle  is  on.  The  King 
is  uppermost.  He  is  victorious.  Capacity 
comes  to  the  front.  Cromwell  moves  into 
view.  He  was  no  seeker  of  place;  place  sought 
him.  He  tarried  at  home,  and  did  the  work 
that  came  to  hand.  He  hated  oppression.  He 
loved  liberty.  What  his  kinsman  Hampden 
did  in  the  matter  of  ship-money,  that  Crom- 
well did  in  the  matter  of  the  draining  of  the 
fens.  He  felt  himself  in  a  high  sense  a  sub- 
ject of  the  government  of  God.  He  held  him- 
self ready  to  move  obedient  to  the  Divine 
command.  Where  duty  called,  he  followed. 
Liberty  called  Cromwell:  he  did  not  call  him- 
self. The  exigencies  of  the  hour  pronounced 
his  name.  Capacity  makes  room  for  itself.  It 
is  always  so.  Gustavus  Adolphus  came  be- 
cause the  place  needed  him.  In  the  swirl  of 
battle  great  men  appear,  because  the  time  calls 
them.  When  liberty  puts  clarion  trumpet  to 
her  lips,  and  sounds  her  note  of  wild  alarm, 
then  a  host  answers,  "Lo,  we  come."  War 
came  in  a  great  nation.  This  was  no  race  of 
warriors,  and  had  no  long  list  of  military  great- 


60  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

ness  from  which  to  call  leaders.  The  time 
came  when  the  nation's  life  hung  by  a  thread; 
when  freedom's  empire  was  well-nigh  lost; 
and  in  the  time  of  dire  extremity  help  came. 
Grant,  the  invincible,  with  unostentatious  bear- 
ing, comes  and  leads  a  million  men  to  victory. 
It  was  the  triumph  of  capacity.  Greatness 
needs  no  herald  before  its  face,  nor  asks  for 
place,  gift  of  another's  hand ;  but  does  its  duty, 
bides  its  time.  So  Cromwell  came;  illustrious 
day!  He  saw  what  others  did  not  see.  This 
battle  was  not  primarily  between  social  classes, 
but  between  conscience,  religion,  manhood  on 
the  one  hand,  and  no  conscience  and  hollow 
insincerity  on  the  other. 

"We  must  have  God-fearing  men,"  said 
Cromwell.  This  was  a  speech  genius  alone 
could  pronounce.  That  was  insight  into  the 
very  spirit  of  the  times.  He  knew  the  thing 
with  which  he  had  to  cope.  What  his  coadju- 
tors took  years  to  learn,  his  acumen  discovered 
at  the  first.  Others  led,  he  followed.  Others 
in  the  van,  he  in  the  rear.  He  was  not  trou- 
bled about  notice  or  praise.  "God  noticed 
him,"  says  Carlyle.  He  was  so  faithful  to  his 
God  and  the  cause  of  liberty  as  an  inferior,  as 
to  be  felt  the  superior  of  all. 


King  Cromwell  6 1 

Some  men  seem  great  by  lack  of  standard 
of  measurement.  Among  a  race  of  Lillipu- 
tians, a  Gulliver  becomes  a  giant.  In  inferior 
epochs,  a  man  may  tower  above  his  contem- 
poraries; not  because  he  is  so  great,  but  be- 
cause they  are  so  insignificant.  It  is  possibly 
so  in  this  instance.  But  the  question  need  not 
delay  for  answer.  Look  at  his  contemporaries. 
Call  the  names  of  those  men  who  made  those 
times  memorable:  Elliot,  Pym,  Hampden,  Mil- 
ton, Ireton,  Thurloe,  Blake, — this  is  a  roll  of 
greatness.  These  men  would  have  shone  in 
the  constellations  of  any  age.  Add  the  name 
of  Strafford,  that  imperious  aristocrat,  the 
statesman  of  the  first  Stuart  reign,  and  we  shall 
find  that  Cromwell  lived  among  men  whom  the 
world  reckons  great.  How  then  came  this 
Cromwell  to  stand  among  them  so  vast?  If 
the  man  was  not  fit  figure  for  the  world's 
Pantheon,  there  is  no  explanation  for  the  fact. 
He  was  a  leader.  He  rose  from  the  level  where 
he  served  his  country,  to  where  he  was  the 
cynosure  of  every  eye  and  the  desire  of  Eng- 
land. He  hid  himself.  He  put  others  forward. 
He  asked  no  rank,  but  seemed  lost  in  the 
cause  of  freedom. 

It  is  observable  that  in  some  eras  great  men 


6.2  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

multiply.  The  times  demand  greatness.  No 
progress  is  possible,  except  nature  do  bestir 
herself.  See  what  hosts  of  notable  generals 
the  French  Revolution  produced.  The  names 
of  men  of  superior  powers  in  the  American 
Revolutionary  period  are  legion.  It  was  the 
same  in  the  crisis  of  the  Rebellion.  It  is  in 
such  times,  as  if  to  meet  the  rush  of  the  tem- 
pest and  to  withstand  the  mad  charge  of  the 
sea,  one  gathered  the  latent,  unsuspected  en- 
ergies of  his  manhood,  and  dedicated  them 
every  one  to  the  task  of  standing  impregnable 
as  a  tower.  In  this  struggle  for  liberty,  when 
great  issues  hung  in  the  balance,  greatness 
multiplied.  Statesmen  unknown  arose,  and 
did  legislate  for  generations  that  were  yet  to 
be.  The  call,  the  answer,  were  blended  in  one 
voice.  Great  men  were  clustering  about  the 
standards  of  liberty;  and  the  most  command- 
ing figure  on  this  stormy  field  is  Oliver  Crom- 
well. He  is  not  to  be  accounted  great  because 
he  dwelt  among  a  pigmy  brood;  but  rather 
that,  among  a  coterie  of  men  whose  talent  was 
far  removed  from  mediocrity,  he,  Saul-like, 
towered  a  head  above  them  all.  Essex  must 
go  to  the  rear;  not  that  Cromwell  willed  or 
planned  it,  but  that  a  greater  than  he  had 


King  Cromwell  "3 

come.  Cromwell  desired  Fairfax  to  have  com- 
mand of  the  war  against  the  Scots;  England 
had  other  desires.  She  knew  the  general  for 
the  conduct  of  this  war  was  not  Fairfax,  but 
Cromwell.  The  nation  had  come  to  know  its 
leader,  and  Dunbar  and  Worcester  justified 
England's  choice.  This  quiet,  unassuming 
man  now  stands  revealed, 

"The  pillar  of  a  people's  hope, 
The  center  of  a  world's  desire." 

He  "came,  saw,  conquered."  He  massed 
his  God-fearing,  praying  battalions,  and  flung 
them  on  his  enemies  like  an  avalanche.  God- 
fearing men  led  by  a  man  of  God  were  invin- 
cible. The  world  looked  and  wondered. 
Battle  with  these  men  was  duty;  for  they 
fought  God's  battles.  Cromwell  suspected  he 
was  there  to  win. 

He  declared  he  would  slay  the  king,  should 
they  meet  in  hour  of  conflict.  He  knew  his 
era  as  no  other  knew  it.  He  conquered  the 
king,  the  Irish,  the  Scotch,  the  Parliament. 
He  merits  the  name  of  Cromwell  the  Con- 
queror. The  train  of  his  victories  is  like  a 
silver  highway  on  the  swelling  sea  when  the 
great  moon  is  full. 


64  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

It  is  not  possible  in  a  brief  sketch  to  give 
an  adequate  estimate  of  genius  such  as  this 
man  possessed.  For  such  task  volumes  only- 
can  suffice.  But  the  characteristics  of  the  man 
may  be  summed  up  best  under  a  dual  heading: 
First,  the  accusations  brought  against  him; 
second,  the  claims  made  for  him.  Under  the 
former  of  these  captions  three  indictments  may 
be  mentioned:  He  was  a  hypocrite;  he  was 
cruel;  he  betrayed  the  cause  of  liberty. 

These  are  grievous  charges.  They  do  not 
militate  against  his  genius;  but  they,  if  prov- 
able, will  blast  his  character  like  an  eternal 
mildew.  Note  each  accusation.  But  before 
that  task  be  attempted,  let  it  be  remarked  that 
his  contemporary  biographers  were  those 
whom  he  had  conquered  in  battle  or  mastered 
in  diplomacy.  They  wrote  with  pen  dipped 
in  gall.  Suppose  the  solitary  biographer  of 
the  Christ  had  been  Annas  or  Caiaphas,  Sad- 
ducee  or  Pharisee,  what  distorted  features  of 
the  Lord  would  we  behold!  It  is  but  too  ap- 
parent that,  as  seen  through  their  eyes,  he 
would  have  looked  the  embodiment  of  icono- 
clasm,  self-opinionation,  and  colossal  arro- 
gancy.  We  have  other,  truer,  and  therefore 
fairer  pictures.    They  who  loved  him  spoke  of 


King  Cromwell  65 

him  as  he  was.  They  who  hated  him  had  cari- 
catured him,  and  written  beneath  the  travesty, 
"This  fellow."  Cromwell's  life  was  not  writ- 
ten by  men  who  knew  and  loved  him,  but  by 
defeated  cavaliers,  by  jealous  inferiority, 
wrathful  because  of  the  man's  supremacy,  or 
by  lovers  of  liberty  who  were  dreamers,  and 
had  not  the  insight  to  discern  what  Cromwell 
perceived.  With  such  biographers,  who  can 
wonder  that  the  Cromwell  of  history  seems  a 
monster,  a  second  Nero,  whose  memory  is  fit 
only  for  obloquy?  This  word  of  warning  is 
absolutely  necessary  for  those  who  would 
know  the  Puritan  general  and  statesman 
aright. 

To  the  charge  of  hypocrisy  let  it  be  re- 
plied, while  his  enemies  are  a  unit  in  this 
accusation,  they  are  not  at  all  agreed  as  to  the 
particular  instances  in  which  his  omnipresent 
hypocrisy  was  displayed.  One  says  he  was 
profoundly  hypocritical  in  advocating  Fair- 
fax's leadership  in  the  war  against  the  Scots; 
while  Mrs.  Harrison  is  sure  that,  though  he 
was  a  monster  of  duplicity,  he  was  honest  here. 
Cromwell  was  not  a  hypocrite.  If  he  was  a 
hypocrite,  then  was  a  towering  genius  exercised 
here  as  elsewhere.    Hypocrisy  is  acting  a  part, 

5 


66  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

wearing  a  mask.  Cromwell,  if  he  wore  a  mask, 
never  dropped  it.  Not  in  word  spoken  or  writ- 
ten, not  in  public,  nor  in  privacy  to  his  best 
beloved,  did  he  seem  other  than  we  know  him. 
We  are  told  his  religious  phrases  were  a  hypo- 
crite's cant;  but  if  any  man  can  candidly  read 
his  letters  and  speeches  and  so  believe,  I  mar- 
vel at  his  insight.  What  I  maintain  is  that,  if 
the  man  was  a  hypocrite,  he  was  the  most 
masterful  deceiver  history  portrays;  he  was 
genius  in  his  craft.  In  truth,  the  man  was  the 
soul  of  honest  intention.  He  was  a  believer  in 
God  and  the  Puritan  cause,  and  in  his  own 
mission.  He  thought  himself  called  of  God 
to  act  his  heroic  part.  He  was  a  believer  in 
Divine  decrees.  He  prayed,  agonized,  came 
from  his  hours  of  introspection,  imbued  with 
the  idea  of  God's  commission  for  a  given  task. 
Such  a  view  of  Cromwell  makes  his  life  ra- 
tional. We  can  thus  comprehend  it.  There  is 
logical  consecutiveness  in  his  character.  But 
on  any  other  theory  there  is  no  clue  whereby 
to  escape  the  labyrinth.  The  charge  of  hypoc- 
risy is  an  easy  method  of  explaining  an  ab- 
struse human  problem.  It  is  a  method  much 
in  vogue  for  explaining  what  otherwise  is 
inexplicable.      In   my  judgment   there    is   no 


King  Cromwell  67 

shred  of  proof  of  Cromwell's  alleged  hypoc- 
risy. 

"Cromwell  was  cruel."  I  incline  to  the 
opinion  that  this  will  not  bear  the  light  of 
honest  investigation.  He  was  stern;  he  was 
a  Puritan.  That  character  was  modeled  after 
the  Old  Testament,  rather  than  the  New.  The 
severity  of  Moses  with  the  Amalekites  was  be- 
fore Cromwell's  eyes.  Those  heathen,  to  his 
thought,  were  not  more  assuredly  the  enemies 
of  God  than  the  men  against  whom  the  Puri- 
tan unsheathed  his  sword.  The  instance  al- 
ways adduced  as  proof  positive  of  this  charge 
is  the  massacre  of  Drogheda  and  Wexford. 
But  certain  facts  must  be  noted.  War  is  not 
among  the  amenities.  It  is  always  cruel.  But 
in  this  epoch,  war  was  clothed  with  horrors 
our  century  can  not  comprehend.  Tilly,  in 
the  Thirty  Years'  War,  had  been  guilty  of  the 
most  execrable  atrocities.  The  Catholics  in 
Ireland,  during  the  early  stages  of  the  Parlia- 
mentary struggle,  had  massacred  helpless  vic- 
tims with  such  savage  cruelty  that  England 
looked  upon  the  perpetrators  as  fiends  incar- 
nate. They  were  savage  belligerents,  whose 
proclivities  for  slaughter  were  so  well  knows, 
that  it  seemed  essential  to  fling  an  abiding 


68  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

terror  into  their  hearts.  This  was  the  end  in 
view  when  Drogheda  and  Wexford  were 
stormed,  and  their  population  slaughtered. 
The  end  was  gained.  The  hostile  Irish  were 
so  totally  subdued  by  the  severity  that  they 
were  guilty  of  no  further  outrage.  Crom- 
well's plan,  when  the  whole  scope  of  affairs  is 
considered,  was  without  question  the  kindliest 
which  could  have  been  devised.  This  man  by 
nature  was  not  cruel.  His  government  was 
not  one  of  fierce  acerbity.  His  was  a  gentle- 
ness, a  tenderness  of  treatment  to  the  con- 
quered cavalier,  which  presents  a  striking  con- 
trast to  the  treatment  accorded  even  the  dead 
by  re-enthroned  royalty.  Cromwell's  govern- 
mental policy,  viewed  as  a  whole,  is  in  no  sense 
open  to  the  charge  of  cruelty. 

But  "Cromwell  betrayed  the  cause  of  lib- 
erty." This,  if  true,  expunges  the  man's  name 
from  the  roll  of  patriotism.  A  traitor!  thing 
to  be  despised!  What  are  the  facts?  On  what 
grounds  do  the  charges  rest?  He  became 
Protector.  The  war  was  waged  for  liberty. 
Puritanism  meant  equality.  A  commonwealth 
shone  in  glory  before  their  eyes.  The  ideal 
government  was  now  to  be  inaugurated. 
Vane,  Harrison,  Haselrig,  dreamed  their  day- 


King  Cromwell  69 

dream  of  democracy.  They  shut  eyes  and  ears. 
They  were  oblivious  to  the  tumultuous  seas 
surging  about  them.  Cromwell  knew  his 
country  and  his  time.  He  held  his  finger  on 
the  nation's  pulse.  He  both  heard  and  saw. 
He  comprehended  that  the  Long  Parliament, 
which  had  in  its  life  accomplished  an  epoch- 
making  work,  had  now  lived  too  long.  It  was 
becoming  senile.  The  Commonwealth  was 
speeding  to  destruction.  Anarchy  lay  but  a 
stone's  cast  ahead.  Clear-visioned  Cromwell 
comprehended  this.  Than  he,  no  stronger  be- 
liever in  human  equality  lived.  He  would 
have  England  rule  itself  without  the  inter- 
position of  army  or  general;  but  it  was  not 
capable  for  so  herculean  a  labor.  He  chose 
to  rule,  rather  than  see  the  thing  for  which  his 
army  and  himself  had  fought  fall  into  ruin. 
England  was  not  ready  for  self-govern- 
ment. It  was  not  yet  grown  to  man's  estate. 
More  than  a  century  must  pass  before  Puri- 
tanism would  grow  so  great.  Confessedly  a 
nation  must  have  assumed  the  toga  virilis  be- 
fore it  can  be  self-controlling.  France  was 
incapable  of  self-government  in  1789.  The 
list  of  victims  for  the  guillotine  had  not  been 
half  so  long  under  a  monarchy.     It  is  a  grave 


7©  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

question  whether  to  this  hour  the  French  peo- 
ple are  qualified  for  this  duty.  The  South 
American  republics  afford  a  melancholy  spec- 
tacle and  a  suggestive  lesson;  while  Mexico  is 
a  republic  only  in  name.  Cromwell  waited 
with  all  patience  till  he  saw  whither  England 
was  drifting.  He  knew  the  brave  craft  would 
break  to  splinters  on  the  rocks.  The  result 
subsequent  to  his  death  justified  his  views, 
and  vindicated  his  motive.  It  was  not  a  ques- 
tion of  Commonwealth  or  Cromwell;  it  was 
a  question  of  Cromwell  or  Charles  II.  Crom- 
well, the  great,  the  heroic,  the  true;  or  Charles, 
the  insignificant,  the  cowardly,  the  false — 
which  shall  rule?  Dare  any  man  halt  between 
these  extremes?  This  was  the  status  of  na- 
tional affairs  which  called  forth  the  resolution 
and  insight  of  the  Puritan  statesman.  His 
Protectorate,  so  far  from  being  a  betrayal  of 
liberty,  was  liberty's  preservation. 

Having  considered  the  negative  phases  of 
this  man's  character,  look  at  the  positive. 
Cromwell  must  be  studied  as  soldier,  orator, 
statesman,  and  man. 

And  it  is  as  a  soldier  the  world  knows  him 
best.  That  martial  figure  rivets  the  world's 
gaze.     He  was  the  soldier  pre-eminent  of  the 


King  Cromwell  71 

Revolutionary  period.  He  rose  to  be  general 
of  all  the  army  by  force  of  achievement  and  by 
right  of  qualification.  He  was  himself.  He 
alone  could  cope  with  fiery  Rupert.  He  alone 
could  organize  a  body  of  soldiery,  whose  fame 
should  be  as  lasting  as  the  world.  There  was 
in  him  the  genius  of  originality  and  organiza- 
tion. He  worked  silently  and  persistently;  and 
from  that  labor  comes  the  Ironsides,  a  body  of 
citizen-soldiers,  Christians,  buckling  on  the 
arms  of  temporal  warfare — an  organization 
where  rank  of  mind  was  superior  to  rank  of 
blood,  a  place  where  men  might  rise  by  cour- 
age and  capacity,  an  embryonic  military  re- 
public. This  was  the  new  model — praying  sol- 
dier! Unique  creation!  Antony,  Caesar,  Fred- 
erick the  Great,  were  not  more  original  in  the 
cast  of  their  military  genius  than  he.  The 
formation  of  his  army  showed  his  discernment. 
An  army  once  created,  his  plan  of  battle  was 
to  drive  like  a  tornado  at  the  enemy's  center. 
He  was  no  Fabius.  The  peculiarity  of  the 
Puritan  character  was  visible  in  his  military 
tactics.  Massive  directness,  that  was  all — that 
was  enough.  Napoleon  was  to  the  end  an  ar- 
tillery officer.  That  stamped  all  his  military 
operations.     Cromwell  was  to  the  end  a  cav~ 


72  The  Poefs  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

airy  officer.  He  fought  to  win ;  he  fought  and 
won.  His  was  no  half-hearted  battle;  but  he 
bared  the  blade  to  smite  with  all  the  strength 
that  slumbered  in  his  arm.  What  Tennyson 
sings  of  Wellington,  might  well  be  sung  of 
Cromwell.  He  knew  no  defeat.  His  name  is 
a  synonym  of  victory.  As  a  general,  he  is  a 
pride  to  England,  a  glory  to  the  world. 

Cromwell  as  orator!  This  seems  a  touch 
of  irony,  or  at  best  of  acid  humor.  But  he  was 
orator.  He  had  no  art  of  Burke  or  Fox.  He 
was  no  Chatham,  no  Pitt.  He  had  no  grace  of 
person,  nor  fascination  of  speech.  But  men 
heard  him.  He  spoke  only  when  his  heart 
was  full.  He  resorted  to  speech  solely  when 
his  silence  oppressed  him  like  a  nightmare. 
It  was  the  thought  he  wished  expressed  that 
drove  him  to  speech.  His  periods  were  not 
those  of  Edward  Everett.  There  was  turgidity 
of  style  which  hints  of  striving  to  put  much 
thought  within  the  limits  of  contracted  utter- 
ance. He  was  warrior  even  in  his  orations. 
His  vocabulary  is  Anglo-Saxon.  It  is  often 
forceful  as  a  battle  charge.  He  did  not  know 
circumlocution.  In  speech,  as  in  battle,  he 
drove  at  the  center.  The  shortest  method  to 
express  the  thought  was  the  line  of  advance. 


King  Cromwell  73- 

Some  of  his  battle  bulletins  seem  to  me  as  ex- 
pressive as  words  could  make  them.  I  think 
no  man  could  hear  Cromwell  speak  and  be  un- 
certain as  to  his  meaning.  His  metaphors  are 
mixed,  his  sentences  ill-balanced;  but  ambi- 
guity was  not  among  his  literary  faults.  There 
is,  in  his  addresses  as  handed  down  to  us, 
something  so  stalwart,  rugged,  soldier-like, 
that  I,  for  one,  can  not  escape  their  charm.  I 
am  well  aware  to  speak  of  Cromwell  as  orator 
is  new,  but  venture  to  hope  there  is  more  than 
audacity  in  the  claim. 

Cromwell  was  a  statesman.  This  is  high 
honor  to  claim  for  any  man.  Statesmanship  is 
the  ability  to  discover  the  trend  of  events,  and 
to  shape  the  course  of  national  affairs  in  har- 
mony therewith.  Politicians  are  many,  states- 
men few.  They  do  not  often  arise.  Mark  the 
procession  of  legislators  and  premiers  of  any 
nation.  Note  them  with  care.  See  them  with 
vision  unobscured  by  the  mists  of  contem- 
poraneous praise  and  blame;  and  the  conclu- 
sion will  be  forced  upon  us,  however  unsavory 
it  may  prove,  that  the  statesmen  in  any  na- 
tion's life  are  lamentably  few.  Soldier,  Crom- 
well was.  The  justice  of  this  appellation  no 
one  denies;  but  the  qualities  of  generalship  and 


74  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

statesmanship  are  not  often  co-existent.  A 
man  may  be  able  to  mass  battalions  and  exe- 
cute maneuvers,  and  be  wholly  incapable  of 
mastering  even  the  rudiments  of  statecraft.  Il- 
lustrations of  the  truth  of  this  statement  mul- 
tiply in  our  thought.  That  Wellington,  as  a 
general,  was  great,  let  Waterloo  declare;  but 
that  as  a  statesman  he  was  below  mediocrity, 
his  premiership  attests.  To  the  rule  as  enun- 
ciated there  are  noticeable  exceptions;  but  all 
such  imply  a  plethora  of  genius.  If  Crom- 
well was  statesman  as  well  as  general,  mani- 
festly he  belongs  to  that  illustrious  minority 
who  are  to  be  ranked  as  men  of  superlative 
powers. 

It  is  common  to  say  he  was  no  statesman. 
Eminent  authorities  are  sponsors  for  this 
statement.  But  if  statesmanship  implies  far- 
sighted  discernment  and  ability  to  achieve  suc- 
cess, surely  he  was  a  statesman.  Cromwell 
believed  in,  and  unflinchingly  advocated,  relig- 
ious toleration.  In  this  the  man  was  a  century 
and  more  in  advance  of  his  times.  He  brought 
about  the  union  of  England,  Ireland,  and  Scot- 
land. He  befriended  the  American  Colonies — 
a  thing  no  other  English  king  had  done.  He 
disfranchised  rotten  boroughs — a  task  requir- 


King  Cromwell  75 

ing  for  its  accomplishment  the  advocacy  and 
diplomacy  of  leading  statesmen  of  our  cen- 
tury. He  created  the  English  navy.  He  at- 
tempted to  reform  the  criminal  law.  He  so 
championed  the  cause  of  Protestantism  that 
he  brought  the  Duke  of  Savoy  to  a  humiliating 
cessation  from  persecution.  His  call  assem- 
bled the  much  ridiculed  "Barebones  Parlia- 
ment," concerning  which  it  is  only  just  to 
make  two  remarks:  It  was  in  a  high  sense  a 
representative  body;  and  did  in  its  enactments 
forecast  many  of  the  most  important  acts  of 
subsequent  English  legislation.  Cromwell  at- 
tempted a  reform  of  the  Court  of  Chancery, 
and  succeeded  beyond  belief.  He  it  was  who 
patronized  learned  institutions,  and  first  in- 
sisted that  young  men  should  be  trained  for 
the  public  service  in  the  universities. 

These  particularizations  will  suffice  to  jus- 
tify the  assertion,  "Cromwell  was  a  statesman." 
Many  a  man  has  been  ranked  with  statesmen 
who  accomplished  not  a  tithe  as  much  as  he. 
His  acts  bear  the  insignia  of  statesmanship. 
True  it  is  that  many  of  Cromwell's  ventures 
were  not  successful.  His  navies  came  back 
defeated;  his  hopes  were  unfulfilled.  But  in 
his  vast  schemes  it  was  as  in  a  battle  with  long 


7 6  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

battle  front.  In  some  places  the  forces  are 
driven  back,  in  others  they  charge,  victori- 
ously onward;  and  the  army  as  a  whole  ad- 
vances with  victory  burning  on  its  banners. 
Cromwell's  plans,  in  part  frustrated,  in  part 
successful,  did  in  their  entirety  end  in  suc- 
cess. When  his  position  is  considered,  and  the 
odds  against  which  he  waged  a  sleepless  war 
are  numbered,  it  is  not  extravagant  to  affirm 
that  no  English-born  king  has  shown  himself 
so  astute  a  statesman  as  the  Puritan  general, 
Oliver  Cromwell. 

But  far  above  the  what  a  man  achieves  is 
the  what  he  is.  Manhood  is  nobler  than 
genius.  No  achievement,  however  brilliant, 
can  compensate  for  the  lack  of  manliness.  The 
what  I  am  is  the  superior  of  what  I  do.  Puri- 
tanism emphasized  the  dignity  of  man.  Such 
character  as  that  movement  produced,  Eng- 
land had  not  seen  for  centuries.  It  has  too 
frequently  been  the  case  that  great  intellectual 
power  has  been  characterized  by  correspond- 
ingly great  turpitude.  Genius  gives  license 
for  lust.  With  Cromwell  it  was  not  so.  He 
was  pure.  His  life  was  clean.  Henry  VIII 
was  a  libertine;  Charles  I,  a  liar;  Charles  II, 
a    second     Domitian     for    lascivious     revels. 


King  Cromwell  77 

Cromwell,  in  striking  antithesis,  was  true  to 
home.  He  honored  his  mother.  He  loved  his 
wife.  Their  relations  were  the  tenderest.  He 
loved  his  children.  His  son,  slain  in  battle, 
was  never  absent  from  his  father's  loving 
thought.  His  daughter  dying,  the  great  heart 
of  the  soldier  broke.  About  the  man  was  a 
noble  dignity.  He  had  no  little  lordliness,  no 
assumed  superiority  which  marks  the  over- 
elevation  of  a  little  soul.  He  rose  not  above 
his  place,  but  to  it.  He  possessed  the  dignified 
demeanor  of  a  man  "to  the  manner  born."  His 
comportment  was  such  as  brought  no  discredit 
to  the  great  nation  whose  head  he  was.  With 
him,  Whitehall  was  the  court  of  a  Christian 
king.  With  his  successor,  it  was  a  home  of 
royal  prostitution.  Could  contrast  be  more 
marked?  As  a  man,  simple,  humble,  not  in- 
toxicated by  his  supreme  elevation,  but  brave, 
pure,  tender — he  held  to  God  as  his  soul's  Sov- 
ereign. The  man  Cromwell  is  of  colossal 
mold,  fit  companion  for  Cromwell  orator,  sol- 
dier, statesman. 

We  judge  men  by  what  they  achieve.  Their 
works  do  magnify  them.  The  poet's  poem  is 
his  exaltation,  and  the  painter  becomes  a 
name  because  his  canvas  glows  with  hues  and 


J  8  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

forms  of  imperishable  loveliness.  This  man. 
should  be  judged  by  like  standard.  He  was 
general  and  ruler.  He  was  great  at  home  and 
abroad.  He  commanded  the  admiration  of 
contemporaries.  He  made  his  government  to- 
be  respected,  feared.  He  gave  England  im- 
perishable renown.  Assuredly,  if  this  man  be 
judged  by  what  he  did  achieve,  he  must  be 
ranked,  as  says  Goldwin  Smith,  "among  the 
chiefest  of  the  sons  of  men." 

Cromwell,  the  great  Protector,  lies  dying. 
A  storm,  fierce,  wild,  terrible,  rages.  The  gen- 
eral has  come  into  his  last  battle.  He  will 
gird  on  sword  no  more.  This  is  his  last 
charge.  It  is  September  3d,  anniversary  of 
victory  at  Dunbar  and  Worcester.  From 
those  conflicts  he  came  forth  unscathed.  From 
this  he  will  be  carried  to  his  grave.  He  prays. 
England  prays.  The  storm  exalts  itself  like  a 
triumphant  troop.  Illustrious  hour  in  which 
a  great  soul  may  pass  "to  where,  beyond  these 
voices,  there  is  peace."  The  battle  is  ended. 
The  hitherto  invulnerable  chief  is  slain.  Crom- 
well lies  dead. 

In  Westminster  Abbey  there  is  a  place  for 
Mary,  who  lost  Calais,  and  stained  her  hands 
with  martyr's  blood;  but  for  Oliver  Cromwell, 


King  Cromwell  79 

no  place.  He  sounded  his  guns  on  every 
shore.  He  lost  no  principality.  He  shed  no 
martyr's  blood.  He  championed  freedom  of 
conscience.  He  compelled  respect  for  Anglo- 
Saxondom.  He  made  England  illustrious  as 
the  dawn.  But  for  him  is  no  place  in  the  mau- 
soleum where  English  honor  sleeps. 

In  Westminster  Abbey  there  is  a  place  for 
Charles  II,  who  made  the  English  court  a 
brothel,  who  sold  Dunkirk  to  England's  most 
inveterate  foe  for  money  to  squander  on  har- 
lots— for  him  a  place  in  Westminster!  But  for 
him  who  protected  the  lowliest  citizen  against 
the  world,  who  made  the  Pope  to  do  his  bid- 
ding, who  won  Dunkirk  with  his  soldier's 
hand — for  Oliver  Cromwell,  there  is  no  place 
in  Westminster  Abbey.  Yet  let  this  stand  as 
an  illustrious  propriety.  No  cathedral  shall 
hold  him.  He  belongs  to  all  the  world.  His 
fame  is  the  common  inheritance  of  the  race. 


William  the  Great  of  England 

The  Puritan  revolution  had  come  and  gone. 
If  its  appearance  had  been  sudden  and  mys- 
terious, its  disappearnce  was  no  less  so.  It 
had  come  unheralded  like  a  new  knight  into 
the  tournament.  It  had  dashed  into  the 
tourney  with  the  swiftness  of  the  wind,  but  had 
vanished  like  Lancelot  when  he  fled  into  the 
silence  of  an  unknown  place  to  heal  him  or  to 
die.  The  rapidity  of  either  transition  is  the 
historical  wonder  of  the  seventeenth  century. 

When  we  attempt  the  enumeration  of  the 
foes  with  which  liberty  must  always  battle, 
the  surprise  is,  not  that  she  does  so  little  or 
so  tardily,  but  that  she  achieves  at  all.  Her 
foes  are  legion.  The  lust  of  power  leaps  like 
a  rider  into  the  saddle  whenever  the  slightest 
opportunity  offers.  But  when  liberty  has 
come,  formed  and  fortified  her  camp,  raised 
her  standard,  numbered  her  adherents,  formu- 
lated her  policy,  written  her  constitution  in 
blood,  then  the  enigma  is  how,  in  the  brief 
passing  of  a  lustrum  or  a  decade,  the  very 
vestiges  of  her  achievements  seemed  washed 
80 


"William  the  Great  of  England  8 1 

away.  That  the  tide,  with  the  whole  ocean 
swelling  in  its  wake,  can  erase  the  rude  scrawl 
of  the  child's  name  from  the  sand,  is  no  sur- 
prise; but  that  when  the  name  of  liberty  has 
been  graven  on  the  rocks  with  graver's  tool, 
keen  enough  to  carve  its  way  through  troops 
marshaled  by  kings — that  such  should  be 
washed  out  by  the  impulse  of  the  passing 
storm  is  a  mystery  the  mind  can  never  pene- 
trate. 

Liberty  came.  The  halo  of  a  youth  eternal 
binds  her  brow;  the  strength  of  centuries  of 
slumbering  powers  seems  gathered  in  her  arm. 
■Armies  which  have  slumbered  during  a  decade 
■of  centuries,  awake,  stirred  by  the  resurrection 
power  of  freedom's  voice.  We  thought  to  see 
a  growing  glory.  We  inferred  a  perpetual 
regnancy  of  such  benignant  principles.  We 
fell  asleep  for  but  an  hour,  when  lo!  the  face 
of  history  has  changed.  The  insignia  of  sub- 
jugation glittered  on  citizen  and  soldier, 
knight  and  lord.  Liberty  seems  destined  to 
an  eternal  sequestration.  No  man  knows  her 
grave,  nor  marked  her  burial;  but  all  believe 
her  dead.  If  some  man  of  supreme  faith  still 
turns  his  inspired  face  toward  the  future,  his 
fellows  mark  him  a  madman  and  a  fool. 

6 


82  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

Such,  in  brief,  is  the  survey  of  the  train  of 
events  following  the  enthronement  of  human 
brotherhood  in  the  Puritan  dominancy.  A 
Cromwell's  death,  a  palsied  power,  a  Richard's 
abdication,  an  impending  military  anarchy  or 
despotism — and  Albemarle  brought  home  a 
banished  prince  amidst  pomp  and  rejoicing, 
which  had  been  a  royal  welcome  to  a  king 
returning  victor  from  the  wars.  A  dissolute 
prince  has  come  with  bodyguard  of  harlots, 
and  such  welcome  as  Rome  gave  Pompey  is 
accorded  him.  A  solecism  this,  before  which 
apology  sits  dumb.  When  had  England  seen 
so  servile  a  Parliament  as  that  which  knelt,  a 
craven,  at  the  throne  of  Charles  II?  His  nod 
was  law.  They  watched  his  gesture  as  mu- 
sicians the  baton  stroke  of  their  master-spirit. 
They  forecast  his  wish.  They  seemed  intent 
on  this,  that  he  should  heap  contumely  upon 
them.  Their  servility  sat  upon  them  like  de- 
lirium. The  king  was  false  to  every  promise. 
Obligation  of  king  to  subject  he  thought  a 
figment,  and  laughed  down.  Men  who  had 
suffered  loss  of  property  and  blood  for  the 
loyalty  they  had  shown  Charles  Stuart's  fail- 
ing fortunes  were  neither  thought  upon  nor 
mentioned.     That  they  had  served  him  must 


"William  the  Great  of  England  §3 

be  its  own  reward.  And  he,  while  men  thought 
him  a  careless,  roystering  symbol  of  kingship, 
was  forging  fetters  for  liberty's  limbs.  And 
still  men  saw  the  shame  he  brought,  the  mon- 
ster vices  which  were  his  daily  bread,  the  sell- 
ing of  national  honor  for  pocket  pence  to 
squander  on  courtesans — saw,  nor  lifted  voice. 
They  saw  the  glory  which  Cromwell  bought 
by  splendid  achievement,  pale  to  gray  and 
gloom;  and  England  became  a  jest  to  all  Eu- 
rope! And  still  they  bowed  at  their  Domi- 
tian's  throne.  To  affirm,  under  such  inculca- 
tion as  these  facts  afford,  that  liberty  was  dead 
seems  but  a  superfluity.  It  would  rather  ap- 
pear she  had  never  lived. 

If  we  may  reason  from  their  conduct,  the 
Stuarts  accounted  ingratitude  a  virtue.  Clar- 
endon, who  supplied  the  statesmanship  for  the 
reign  of  Charles  II,  as  Strafford  had  done  for 
that  of  Charles  I,  discovered  that  royalty  had 
no  remembrance  of  service  loyally  and  ably 
performed.  If  Charles  I  let  Strafford  perish 
on  the  block  despite  the  royal  promise  to  save 
him  at  every  hazard,  Charles  II,  despite  the 
long  years  of  his  secretary's  faithfulness  in 
times  of  exile,  despite  every  incentive  to  a 
gratitude    that    should    have    known    neither 


84  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

metes  nor  bounds,  drove  him  from  his  royal 
presence.  If  the  king,  dying,  whispered,  "Re- 
member poor  Nell,"  it  is  but  candor  to  remark 
that  mistresses  were  the  only  persons  who 
could  boast  his  substantial  regard.  Men, 
court,  and  England  itself,  must  be  sold  in  the 
shambles  to  gratify  the  passions  of  this  libidi- 
nous lord. 

But  Charles  is  dead.  James  II  ascends  the 
throne.  His  brother  was  a  jester  till  he  died. 
This  man  is  bigoted,  morose,  and  sullen  as 
winter.  Yet  with  his  failings  he  is  superior 
to  Charles  by  unnumbered  gradations.  Those 
who  bore  the  shame  of  the  reign  of  Charles  II 
should  not  have  murmured  at  the  tyranny  of 
James.  Charles  masked  his  malice  with  a 
smile;  James  moved  toward  his  destined  end 
with  knit  brows.  This  it  was  that  slew  him. 
If  ever  there  was  a  desert  in  the  history  of  lib- 
erty, it  was  in  the  epoch  succeeding  the  pro- 
tectorate of  mighty  Cromwell,  and  extending 
to  the  abdication  of  James  II.  Yet  even  that 
desert  was  to  bloom  with  beauty;  and  liberty 
was  only  sleeping,  and  not  dead.  And  this 
was  the  hour  which  was  to  witness  the  coming 
of  William,  the  greatest  English  king  after 
Cromwell. 


William  the  Great  of  England  85 

Of  the  four  Williams  named  in  the  list  of 
English  kings,  two  were  foreigners.  The  men 
of  strength  were  foreign  born.  William  Rufus 
and  William  IV  added  names  to  the  list  of 
kings,  but  have  made  history  no  richer  be- 
cause they  reigned.  But  of  the  first  and  third 
William,  history  may  well  be  voluble.  They 
differed  in  nationality,  time,  character.  One 
was  a  Norman,  and  founded  the  British  Em- 
pire; the  other  was  Dutch,  and  refounded,  on 
a  nobler  plan,  the  government  which  had  fallen 
so  low  men  thought  it  could  no  more  arise. 
They  lived  six  centuries  apart. 

William  I  was  cruel.  He  seemed  to  revivify 
the  spirit  of  Attila  and  Alaric.  He  was  iron- 
handed,  and,  in  his  bursts  of  passion,  fierce 
even  to  frenzy.  Self-restraint  he  did  not  so 
much  as  know  by  name.  He  embodied  the 
strength  and  weakness  of  Feudalism.  A  con- 
tinental feudal  lord,  he  raised  himself  to  be 
an  island  king.  Atilla  the  Hun  was  not  more 
ferocious ;  and  no  inroad  of  buccaneers,  Saxon 
or  Danish,  was  ever  more  terrible  than  his  con- 
quest. His  caress  was  cruel.  His  smile  had 
no  sunlight  in  it.  He  peopled  England  with 
desolation.  He  banished  the  Saxon  from 
camp  and  palace,  and  thought  he  had  made  a 


86  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

perpetual  banishment.  William  I  was  ruthless- 
ness  enthroned.  But  historians  allow  the  man 
was  no  mediocre.  In  a  fierce  age  he  out- 
matched its  fierceness;  but  there  was  in  him  a 
genius  for  control.  He  curbed  his  fierce  bar- 
ons. His  vengeance  appalled  them.  Love  he 
did  not  expect,  and  cared  not  for.  Obedience 
he  demanded  and  enforced  with  terrible  severi- 
ties. His  shaggy  brows  beetled  over  eyes 
that  saw.  Statesmanship  was  in  him.  He  was 
the  greatest  statesman  of  his  century. 

Six  stormy  centuries  pass.  Norman,  Plan- 
tagenet,  Lancaster,  York,  Tudor,  Stuart,  each 
has  his  day.  Feudalism  lives  to  totter  in  de- 
crepitude; and  the  last  feudal  baron,  king- 
making  Warwick,  closes  the  gate  that  shuts 
mediaeval  England  out  for  evermore.  There 
is  struggle  for  liberty  at  Runnymede,  at 
Naseby,  in  Star-chamber,  in  Parliament. 
Tower  Hill  is  crimson  with  patriot's  blood. 
We  seem  to  be  spectators  of  the  horrors  of 
an  opium-eater's  dream.  Another  king  as- 
cends the  throne.  His  mien  betrays  his  king- 
liness.  The  third  William  is  the  antithesis  of 
the  first.  His  is  the  spirit  of  modern  Europe. 
His  whole  life  is  an  apocalypse  of  self-control. 
He  is  a  warrior,  but  not  a  marauder  and  as- 


William  the  Great  of  England  87 

sassin  calling  himself  a  king.  He  humbles  the 
pride  of  the  French  sovereign,  when  that  mon- 
arch had  prevailed  in  the  face  of  all  Europe. 
By  his  accession  the  English  struggle  for 
constitutional  liberty  was  terminated  trium- 
phantly; and  it  thus  happens  that  William  is  a 
man  important,  not  only  for  himself,  but  also 
for  the  drama  in  whose  closing  scene  he  acted. 

He  is  a  man  who  challenges  remembrance, 
both  for  what  he  was  and  what  he  did.  But 
if  to  this  there  be  added  an  illustrious  field 
for  the  display  of  ability,  and  momentous 
events  which  missed  being  tragic  because  he 
was  present,  then  clearly  a  more  absorbing 
interest  attaches  to  him.  He  becomes  the 
more  important,  and  must  be  interrogated  if 
we  are  to  comprehend  one  of  the  most  unique 
and  important  epochs  of  modern  history. 

William  III  was  a  native  of  the  United 
Netherlands.  Born  in  1650,  died  in  1702,  his 
eventful  life  spanned  an  eventful  half-century. 
He  belonged  to  a  race  distinguished  alike  for 
industry  and  love  of  liberty.  The  Dutch  had 
wrested  the  land  they  inhabited  from  the 
ocean.  In  Caesar's  time,  Holland  was  a  series 
of  marshes  verging  on  the  Northern  seas.  By 
a  matchless  industry,  that  uninhabited  and  un- 


88  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Otter  Essays 

inhabitable  waste  had  become  the  most  fertile 
tract  in  Europe.  This  land  became  the  refuge 
for  the  persecuted  Puritans  of  England;  and 
from  its  shores,  Puritan  America  set  sail.  The 
Dutch  had  become  a  race  of  seafaring  mer- 
chantmen, whose  vessels  entered  every  harbor 
of  the  earth.  They  planted  colonies  in  the 
New  World,  and  founded  as  their  capital  that 
city  which  has  become  the  metropolis  of  mod- 
ern America.  It  was  fitting  that  a  people  so 
distinguished  for  industry  should  become  re- 
nowned in  the  annals  of  liberty,  and  so  it  was. 
The  Dutch  set  the  English  an  example  in  re- 
sisting kingly  tyranny.  The  encroachments 
of  the  bigoted,  imperious  Philip  spurred  them 
into  rebellion.  The  Inquisition,  with  its  un- 
imagined  horrors,  goaded  the  people  to  veri- 
table frenzy;  and  some  of  the  most  noble  rec- 
ords of  human  heroism  are  to  be  found  in  the 
battles  and  sieges  of  this  remarkable  people. 
Under  the  leadership  of  William  the  Silent,  a 
man  of  splendid  genius,  of  catholicity  of  spirit 
rarely  equaled,  and  of  a  breadth  of  view  sur- 
passed only  by  breadth  of  patriotism, — under 
the  leadership  of  such  a  man  the  Netherlands 
became  free. 

William  III  was  scion  of  a  noble  house,, 


William  the  Great  of  England  S9. 

and  the  inheritor  of  qualities  which  made  Will- 
iam the  Silent  a  figure  fit  for  the  pantheon  of 
the  world.  In  frame,  he  was  slender  and 
feeble.  The  citadel  of  his  life  was  beset  by 
asthma  and  consumption.  His  life  was  a  con- 
quest of  an  indomitable  will  over  seemingly 
impossible  odds.  His  forehead  was  capacious, 
his  cheek  pale,  his  expression  sullen,  his  man- 
ner incongenial.  He  was  taciturn,  and  sel- 
dom smiled.  He  repelled  men,  rather  than  at- 
tracted them.  Only  in  time  of  battle  did  his 
manners  become  gracious,  his  smile  sunny, 
and  his  mien  truly  lordly.  In  feebleness  of 
frame,  he  reminds  us  of  Torstenson,  the  illus- 
trious successor  of  Gustavus  Adolphus.  In 
generalship,  he  was  a  second  William  the  Si- 
lent. In  statescraft,  he  stands,  as  Macaulay 
affirms,  ''the  peer  of  Richelieu." 

William  III  was  the  great-grandson  of 
William  the  Silent,  and  posthumous  son  of 
William  II,  Prince  of  Orange,  "and  was,"  as 
Kitchen  affirms,  "destined  to  be  the  most  dis- 
tinguished man  of  his  race."  That  such  was 
to  be  his  elevation,  there  was  nothing  to  fore- 
cast. At  his  birth  the  sun  of  the  House  of 
Orange  seemed  set.  "Father  William"  had 
been  slain  by  a  hired  assassin  of  Phillip  II. 


90  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

Prince  Maurice,  as  a  brilliant  soldier,  had  con- 
tinued the  heroic  enterprise  for  freedom,  to 
which  his  father  had  dedicated  his  fortune  and 
his  life.  On  his  death,  in  1625,  Frederick 
Henry,  his  brother,  seized  the  spear  which  had 
fallen  from  Maurice's  dying  grasp,  and  wielded 
it  right  royally  for  two  and  twenty  years.  In 
1648  the  Netherlands  were  recognized  as  free. 
They  were  Spanish  dependencies  no  more. 

The  House  of  Orange  had  liberated  the 
the  Lowlands.  Such  service,  it  would  appear, 
merited  recognition  and  reward;  but  Will- 
iam II,  son  of  Frederick,  was  supremely  am- 
bitious, and,  it  is  to  be  feared,  supremely  self- 
ish. His  grandfather  had  been  the  servant  of 
his  country;  the  grandson  estimated  the  coun- 
try his  body-servant,  to  do  his  bidding.  Such 
ambition  "o'erleaped  itself."  At  his  death  the 
States  General  abolished  the  stadtholdership. 
The  government  became  an  aristocratic  re- 
public, with  virtual  kingly  power  in  the  hands 
of  the  Grand  Pensionary,  John  DeWitt;  and 
William  of  Orange  grew  up  the  acknowledged 
head  of  a  semi-monarchical  party,  at  once 
hated,  watched,  and  feared.  His  words,  looks, 
and  gestures  were  recorded.  Suspicion 
guarded   him  on  every  side.     He   had  been 


William  tie  Great  of  England  91 

hedged  with  enemies  from  his  childhood. 
Hence,  says  Protherou,  "William  learned  cau- 
tion, reserve,  insight  into  character,  and  the 
art  of  biding  his  time."  He  had  come  to  guard 
his  thoughts  as  soldiers  do  the  palace  of  the 
king.  Any  but  a  prophet  would  have  said 
the  glory  of  the  House  of  Orange  had  de- 
parted. The  youth  of  Frederick  the  Great 
gave  indefinitely  more  promise  than  that  of 
William;  and  men  did  not,  could  not  know 
that  this,  the  last  of  an  illustrious  house,  was 
to  become  the  chief  personality  of  contem- 
poraneous Europe. 

These  infelicitous  surroundings  afford  some 
clue  to  the  character  of  Orange.  They  do  not 
account  for  it.  Environment  never  can  ac- 
count for  either  character  or  conduct.  At  best 
it  casts  but  a  feeble  light.  It  is  never  more 
than  an  adjunct.  But  doubtless  those  traits 
of  the  prince  which  made  him  so  unpopular 
as  an  English  sovereign  had  thus  been  burned 
the  deeper  into  his  soul. 

Deterrents  to  popularity  were  elemental  in 
his  career  as  general  and  statesman.  His  face 
never  betrayed  him.  He  hid  behind  it  as  be- 
hind a  mask.  Though  joy  laughed  in  his 
heart,  his  face  was  sunless,  his  eyes  lusterless. 


92  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

Praise  or  blame,  victory  or  defeat,  he  met  with 
visage  unperturbed.  Men  looked  in  vain  to 
read  the  secrets  he  hid  in  his  capacious  mind. 
Diplomats  could  get  no  word  which  should 
betray  the  plans  he  was  maturing  for  the  ac- 
complishment of  that  end  to  which  he  had 
dedicated  every  power  of  his  soul — that  end 
the  humiliation  of  Louis  XIV  and  the  enfran- 
chisement of  Europe.  And  when  the  year 
1672  came,  and  with  it  the  battalions  of  Louis's 
unequaled  soldiers  to  wash  like  a  storm-sea 
over  the  Netherlands,  William,  the  lad  of 
twenty-two,  was  in  truth  a  man  of  mature  in- 
tellect and  vigor,  fit  to  cope  with  the  greatest 
sovereign  of  Europe. 

Since  the  Dutch  had,  in  1667,  become  a 
party  to  the  Triple  Alliance,  Louis  had  deter- 
mined to  annihilate  Holland.  At  that  time  he 
was  the  statesman  pre-eminent  of  all  Christen- 
dom. With  him  diplomacy  took  shape  as  an 
art  in  government,  and  with  it  he  conquered 
in  the  cabinets  of  kings.  His  diplomacy  had 
served  to  detach  every  ally  from  Holland,  and 
leave  it  as  friendless  as  the  beggar  shivering 
at  the  gate.  Thus,  alone  and  armyless,  the 
republic  must  meet  upon  the  field  of  blood  the 
best-trained    soldiers    of    the    century.      The 


William  the  Great  of  England  93 

provinces  were  panic-stricken.  That  was 
William's  hour.  He  rose  to  meet  the  storm. 
He  met  it  as  the  sailor  the  tempest,  with  cour- 
age like  to  joy.  He  roused  his  provinces  to 
resistance.  He  gave  his  revenues  and  private 
fortune  to  the  State,  to  be  used  in  defense. 
He  took  the  lead  of  its  armies.  He  stood  in 
the  swirl  of  battle  undisturbed,  even  joyful. 
He  opened  the  sluices  and  flooded  vast  tracts, 
as  William  the  Silent  had  done  before  him. 
He  was  heroism  at  its  best.  He  formed  con- 
federations against  France.  He  won  no  battle; 
but  such  was  his  genius  for  turning  defeat  into 
triumph  that  Turenne  and  Conde,  though 
always  victors,  were  always  defeated.  Conde 
retired,  Turenne  died;  but  William  lived  to 
celebrate,  in  1678,  the  treaty  of  Nimeguen  and 
the  independence  of  Holland.  Small  wonder 
that  his  countrymen  loved  him  with  an  affec- 
tion near  to  adoration.  The  ten  years  which 
had  succeeded  this  triumphant  peace  were,  on 
William's  part,  an  era  of  diplomacy.  He 
headed  the  coalition  of  Europe.  A  country 
with  scant  ten  thousand  square  miles  of  terri- 
tory dominates  in  the  councils  of  emperors; 
so  does  genius  master. 

Had  the  stadtholder  never  become  a  king, 


94  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

had  his  base  of  action  never  been  enlarged 
from  a  province  to  a  kingdom,  William  III 
would  have  ranked  among  the  great  men  of 
Modern  Europe.  It  was  not  place  made  him 
great.  When  he  became  king  of  England,  it 
was  he  who  honored  England,  not  England 
which  honored  him. 

From  the  time  of  his  marriage  with  Mary, 
daughter  of  the  Duke  of  York,  William  had 
turned  the  attention  of  his  astute  intellect  to 
England  and  English  politics.  He  cast  covet- 
ous eyes  upon  the  throne,  because  as  the  sover- 
eign of  one  of  the  great  powers  of  Europe  he 
could  more  effectually  head  the  coalitions 
against  the  arch  enemy  of  continental  powers, 
the  king  of  France.  It  is  safe  to  assume  that 
never  in  waking  hours  did  the  prince  forget 
that  king  whose  life  was  spent  in  self-adulation 
and  in  plans  for  the  aggrandizement  of  him- 
self and  Catholicism.  William  was  the  ac- 
knowledged head  of  Protestant  Europe.  If  he 
cared  for  England's  crown,  for  such  common 
ambition  as  the  many  know,  that  desire  is  not 
apparent.  With  him  the  kingship  of  England 
was  a  means,  and  not,  as  with  others,  an  end. 

The  haughtiness  of  Louis  becomes  insup- 


William  the  Great  of  England  95 

portable.  He  domineers  over  Europe.  He 
revokes  the  Edict  of  Nantes.  James,  with 
that  folly  characteristic  of  the  Stuarts,  goads 
his  people  into  anger  he  can  not  allay.  Will- 
iam is  invited  to  England  to  save  English 
liberties.  He  does  not  haste.  He  feels  the 
pulse  of  England,  till  he  knows  the  hour  has 
come.  Then  he  gathers  his  troops,  sets  sail 
for  Torbay,  lands  on  the  island  kingdom,  and 
heads  his  columns  toward  London.  The  die 
is  cast.  The  glorious  revolution  hastens  to 
accomplishment. 

The  travesty  and  the  pathos  of  the  revolu- 
tion of  1688  lies  in  this,  that  patriotism  played 
so  insignificant  a  part.  Love  of  freedom  was 
not  so  much  a  factor  as  the  hatred  for  the  sa- 
turnine James.  Anomalous  as  the  statement  is, 
love  of  liberty  was  inferior  to  love  of  per- 
jury. That  so  benignant  a  revolution  should 
have  such  paternity  seems  impossible,  but  is 
only  melancholy  truth.  Marlborough,  who  owed 
all  to  his  master,  James,  was  foremost  in  con- 
spiring against  him,  hoping  in  change  of  mas- 
ters to  increase  gains.  His  spirit  was  the  spirit 
of  his  compeers.  Besides  Somers,  Notting- 
ham, and  possibly   Montague,  it  is  hard  to 


96  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

name  an  English  statesman  of  the  reign  of 
William  III  who  was  a  man  of  incorruptible 
honor. 

All  this  goes  to  show  the  influence  of  a 
reign  like  that  of  Charles  II.  Charles  died, 
but  the  blight  of  his  reign  survived  him.  Dis- 
honor was  to  him  instead  of  honor;  and  that 
statesmen  trained  in  such  a  school  should  have 
been  traitors  for  a  coronet  is  not  hard  to  be- 
lieve. When  had  political  virtue  been  so  low? 
The  virtue  of  those  men  who  championed  the 
Puritan  revolution  was  so  unimpeachable,  and 
their  character  so  clean,  that  their  memory  is 
like  precious  odors.  They  had  the  flavor  of 
divine  moralities.  They  entertained  elevated 
conceptions  of  honor.  But  with  the  return  of 
the  Stuarts  there  was  a  reinstatement  of  de- 
praved political  codes.  Those  who  hoped  to 
receive  honors  from  the  king's  munificence, 
must  bring  their  purchase-money  in  their 
hands.  All  England  was  an  object  of  barter. 
The  king  received  bribes  from  France;  he 
must  also  receive  bribes  from  England.  Like 
lord,  like  liege.  The  antecedents  of  the  revo- 
lution of  1688,  England  may  well  hope  to  for- 
get: the  result  of  it  she  may  well  pray  to  hold 
in  everlasting  remembrance.    Corrupt  govern- 


"William  the  Great  of  England  97 

ments  are  always  a  curse  to  both  present  and 
future.  The  vitiated  morals  of  this  period 
make  solemn  comment  on  the  curse  of  corrupt 
kings. 

But  history  is  one.  Unpropitious  to  liberty 
as  the  times  seemed,  they  were  not  more  so 
than  those  which  antedate  the  rise  of  the 
Dutch  Republic.  He  who  reads  the  records  of 
that  era  to  a  certain  point  will  come  to  ques- 
tion whether  Holland  had  any  man  save  one, 
and  whether  liberty  were  not  a  lost  art.  The 
Netherlands  suffered  the  Inquisition  to  do  its 
worst.  Its  sons  wore  the  shackles  of  a  galling 
servitude,  and  refused  to  break  them.  Exe- 
crable cruelties  seemed  powerless  to  change 
them  from  cowards  into  men.  That  Orange 
could  have  believed  in  them  through  it  all  is 
one  of  the  miracles  of  human  faith.  Egmont 
and  Horn  were  purchased  with  a  smile.  Many 
another  exchanged  his  honor  as  a  thing  of 
barter.  Yet  out  of  such  sterile  soil  had  risen 
a  gigantic  growth.  And  the  Batavian  Repub- 
lic stood  the  foremost  republic  in  Europe  and 
in  the  world. 

So,  in  the  light  of  history,  England's  cause 
was  not  altogether  hopeless.  The  very  per- 
fidy, the  dishonor,  the  shameless  treason  of 
.    .  ■       -  ...         7    .    .      •         .... 


98  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

men  highest  in  the  counsels  of  the  king,  were 
made  under  God  the  ministers  of  constitu- 
tional liberty. 

Four  and  a  half  centuries  of  struggle  for 
constitutional  liberty  were  marshaling  squad- 
rons for  their  last  onset.  This  was,  as  we  now 
know,  a  solemn  and  majestic  moment.  In  the 
last  charge  is  always  something  fathomless 
in  tragic  interest.  The  pathos  of  that  final 
charge  of  Napoleon's  life-guard  is  fit  to  make 
men  weep.  All  life  flung  into  one  awful  hour 
is  a  spectacle  before  which  silence  is  the  only 
fitting  speech.  The  Anglo-Saxon  is  now  to 
make  one  more  massive  onset.  It  is  the  Mara- 
thon of  king  or  constitution.  From  Runny- 
mede  and  John  to  Whitehall  and  James,  the 
march  has  been  one  long  struggle  between 
absolutism  and  constitutional  rights.  The 
shout  and  tumult  of  battle  have  been  incessant. 
It  was  in  such  a  scene  that  William  III  was 
called  upon  to  be  the  kingly  actor. 

Two  things  are  requisite  that  a  drama  may 
be  sublime, — noble  stage  and  noble  actor. 
These  two  elements  are  met  this  hour.  The 
destinies  of  liberty,  for  which  Puritans  have 
been  glad  to  die,  were  marching  to  triumph  or 
death.      The    battle-piece    is    sublime;    and 


William  the  Great  of  England  99 

Orange  is  a  fit  figure  to  hold  his  place  on  such 
a  scene.  For  such  an  hour  he  was  the  man 
of  destiny.  He  it  was  who  made  victory 
achievable.  His  whole  life  seemed  preparation 
for  this  exigency  of  liberty.  His  was  that 
tutoring  of  adversity  which  makes  men  meet 
for  any  hazard.     He  had  been  schooled 

"To  throw  away  the  dearest  thing  he  owned, 
As  't  were  a  careless  trifle." 

And  at  the  end  he  might  have  said  with  Rich- 
ard III, 

"And  I  have  set  my  life  upon  a  cast, 
And  I  will  stand  the  hazard  of  the  die." 

Subtraction  is  sometimes  an  easy  and  lucid 
method  of  finding  the  value  of  a  given  quantity. 
Heat  eliminated,  the  world,  which  is  so  fair, 
would  become  a  barren  ice-waste,  flowerless 
as  the  region  of  the  pole.  Moisture  subtracted, 
the  planet  would  wheel  to  every  sunrise  one 
hot  Sahara,  with  no  oasis  to  offer  fountain 
and  rest  and  cooling  shade.  The  earth  would 
be  a  fevered  giant,  for  whose  delirium  no  febri- 
fuge could  avail.  Use  this  method  in  determin- 
ing the  value  of  William  of  Orange  as  a  factor 
in  that  revolution  which  gave  to  England  a 
new   meridian.     Suppose   he   had   not   been. 


IOO  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

What  could  England  have  done?  Whither 
could  it  have  looked  for  aid?  Where  was  there 
a  man  in  Europe  to  whose  hands  Parliament 
would  have  felt  safe  in  intrusting  the  scepter? 

Is  it  not  clear  that  but  for  William  that 
gracious  revolution  had  not  been  for  a  century 
or  centuries?  It  appears  plain  that,  in  any- 
conservative  estimate,  to  William,  England 
must  be  debtor  for  the  clear  gain  of  at  least 
a  hundred  years  of  constitutional  government. 
Small  wonder  then  that  a  test  of  fealty  to  the 
progressive  party  in  English  politics  has  been 
loyalty  to  the  memory  of  their  great  deliv- 
erer, William  of  Orange.  His  presence  and 
coming  simplified  the  problem,  and  rendered  a 
solution  possible.  In  this  light,  his  value  to 
Anglo-Saxondom  and  the  world  is  impossible 
to  overestimate. 

The  battles  for  liberty  have  been  won  by 
scant  populations.  The  few  sowed,  the  many 
reap.  The  population  of  the  Netherlands,  in 
the  era  of  the  struggle  for  freedom  from  Span- 
ish possessions,  numbered  three  millions. 
That  of  America  at  the  time  of  its  Revolution 
was  the  same.  The  census  of  England  at  the 
time  of  the  Revolution  was  five  millions.  It 
seems  beyond  belief  that  this  supreme  triumph 


"William  the  Great  of  England  lot 

for  constitutionality  was  won  by  populations 
only  a  trifle  larger  than  that  of  London  of 
the  present;  but  so  it  was.  The  few  are  bene- 
factors, the  many  beneficiaries. 

The  succession  of  events  following  Will- 
iam's landing  and  preceding  his  coronation,  is 
briefly  rehearsed.  James  desires  to  treat. 
William  astutely  accedes  to  the  request.  The 
king  takes  advice  from  his  timorous  heart,  and 
flees;  is  captured  and  returned,  to  the  chagrin 
of  the  prince;  escapes  again;  destroys  the  writs 
of  convocation,  disbands  the  army,  throws  the 
great  seal  into  the  Thames,  takes  ship  with 
wife  and  babe  for  France;  and, — finis  to  the 
Stuarts.  It  is  fit  termination  of  Stuart  sover- 
eignty; and  for  such  self-exile  there  can  be  no 
return. 

In  the  light  of  succeeding  events,  England 
can  have  no  more  celebrated  anniversary  than 
November  5th,  the  date  of  William's  landing. 
How  stupendous  the  undertaking  on  which 
he  entered,  no  one  but  himself  comprehended. 
His  solemn  farewell  to  the  States  of  Holland 
is  full  of  pathos.  He  says  he  is  leaving  them 
"perhaps  not  to  return."  Should  he  fall  in 
defense  of  the  reformed  religion  and  the  inde- 
pendence of  Europe,  he  commends  his  beloved 


102  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

wife  to  their  care.  These  utterances  affirm 
how  well  the  prince  knew  the  gravity  of  the 
undertaking  on  which  he  was  now  embarked. 
During  the  reign  of  Charles  II,  England  had 
been  a  dependency  of  the  French  crown. 
James  had  pledged  himself  to  continue  this 
relation.  Add  to  this  the  bigotry  of  James 
and  the  complete  surrender  of  his  narrow  na- 
ture to  Catholicism,  and  the  rock  on  which 
the  cause  of  Protestantism  was  drifting  looms 
terribly  through  the  fog. 

Such  men  as  Phillip  II,  Louis  XIV,  and 
James  II,  open  a  strange  chapter  to  students 
of  psychology.  These  men  were  barren  in  all 
that  affection  characteristic  of  great  souls. 
They  were  as  selfish  as  the  desert,  which  in- 
gulfs all  streams,  but  gives  back  no  fountain. 
Yet  the  love  these  men  gave  Rome  was  as  ex- 
travagant and  absolute  as  the  donors  were 
bigoted  and  malignant.  William  did  not  bat- 
tle with  shadows.  He  did  not  misconstrue  the 
writing  on  the  wall.  The  union  of  Catholic 
England  and  Catholic  France  with  a  single 
ruler  for  the  two,  and  he  such  a  man  as 
Louis  XIV,  meant  the  destruction  of  liberty 
and  Protestantism  so  far  as  this  was  a  possi- 
bility  of   human   machination.     Three   years 


William  the  Great  of  England  103 

before,  the  revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes 
had  shown  to  an  astonished  Europe  the  length 
to  which  the  bigotry  of  the  French  sovereign 
would  drive  him.  These  facts  loomed  omi- 
nously before  the  eyes  of  Prince  William,  and 
impelled  him  to  venture  all,  that  he  might 
save  all. 

This  is  a  legitimate  interpretation  of  the 
Declaration  of  Rights.  It  has  no  insular  mean- 
ing. If  it  meant  much  to  the  island  kingdom, 
it  meant  scarcely  less  to  the  continental  king- 
doms. Its  stipulations,  sown  to  the  tides  of  air 
and  sea,  and  borne  to  every  continent,  are 
therefore  familiar  to  the  world.  In  a  word,  the 
"Declaration"  means  the  supremacy  of  the 
people.  The  king  becomes  elective,  and  ap- 
pears the  creation  of  Parliament,  not  Parlia- 
ment the  creation  of  the  king.  This  was  fit 
climax  of  Magna  Charta;  and  thus  the  Eng- 
lish Constitution,  that  great,  unwritten  docu- 
ment, was  completed.  On  February  13,  1689, 
at  Whitehall,  William  and  Mary  became  joint 
sovereigns  under  such  limitations.  England 
became,  in  fact  as  well  as  in  legal  fiction,  a 
constitutional  monarchy;  and  the  Glorious 
Revolution  was  consummated.  No  bloody 
assize  comes  with  William's  reign.     That  be- 


104  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

longs  to  the  execrable  atrocities  of  Jeffreys 
and  of  James.  William's  motto,  "I  will  main- 
tain," was  supplemented  by,  "the  liberties  of 
England  and  the  Protestant  religion."  Such 
was  his  splendid  purpose;  such  his  still  more 
splendid  achievement. 

The  recording  these  events  which  made 
William  king  is  a  task  easy  of  accomplish- 
ment; but  the  magnitude  of  the  undertaking 
was  sufficient  to  have  appalled  a  soul  less 
great.  Macaulay  says:  "One  capacious  and 
powerful  mind  alone  took  all  the  difficulties 
into  view,  and  determined  to  surmount  them 
all,"  and  "the  whole  history  of  ancient  and 
modern  times  records  no  such  triumph  of 
statesmanship."  High  tribute  this;  but  the 
lapse  of  time  demands  no  revision  of  state- 
ment. But  the  task  on  which  the  king  en- 
tered was,  if  possible,  as  arduous  as  the  one 
just  completed.  The  declaration,  when  once 
in  the  nation's  blood  and  circulating  in  its 
veins,  was  to  introduce  the  most  memorable 
changes  which  have  occurred  in  the  whole  his- 
tory of  England. 

William  was  born  to  be  king.    The  qualities 
of  mind  and  heart  which  justify  kingship  he 


William  the  Great  of  England  105 

possessed  in  an  eminent  degree.  Hallam  says: 
"The  desire  of  rule  in  William  III  was  as  mag- 
nanimous and  public-spirited  as  ambition  can 
ever  be  in  human  bosom."  Such  a  man  may 
be  trusted  with  supreme  powers.  Had  he 
been  an  autocrat  the  thirteen  years  of  his  sov- 
ereignty would  doubtless  have  brought  such 
humiliation  to  France  as  Crecy  or  Malpla- 
quet  wrought.  With  powers  like  Napoleon, 
he  had  ground  Louis  into  powder.  But  in 
his  plan  he  was  often  like  a  boat  locked  in 
harbor  by  adverse  winds.  Time  and  tide  are 
propitious,  but  the  bark  can  not  slip  from  the 
mooring.  England  could  not  see  through 
William's  eyes.  That  required  his  genius.  He 
must  first  master  Parliament,  then  the  coun- 
cils of  Europe.  The  conflict  was  a  bitter  one. 
Small  wonder  that  sometimes  he  cried  out  like 
a  wounded  man,  and  would  have  resigned  the 
sovereignty,  and  retired  to  Holland. 

Yet  it  was  better  that  one  king,  attempered 
for  benignant  rule,  be  hampered  unduly  than 
other  kings  of  common  sort  should  reign  with- 
out control.  The  historian  above  quoted  avers 
that  "William  was  too  great  for  his  time,"  and 
"the  last  sovereign  of  this  country  whose  un- 


106  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

derstanding  and  energy  of  character  have  been 
distinguished."  For  that  reason  the  Declara- 
tion of  Rights  must  prevail.  English  liberties 
must  be  maintained.  In  this  view  the  very 
humiliation  of  so  great  a  king  was  a  triumph 
of  the  Revolution,  whose  master  spirit  he  was. 
William  saw  that  continued  war  with 
France  was  the  price  England  must  pay  for 
its  freedom.  That  is  the  key  to  his  diplomacy 
and  sleepless  activity.  Louis  sheltered  the  de- 
throned king,  and  championed  his  cause  with 
money,  arms,  diplomatic  agents.  The  war  of 
1689  was  the  solitary  thing  which  saved  the 
independence  of  England.  The  British  people 
had  moments  of  vision;  but  the  glory  of  events 
blinded  them.  But  the  king  saw  on.  Will- 
iam's whole  life  was  one  long  campaign 
against  France,  of  which  his  life  as  king  was 
only  a  part.  He  formed  the  Grand  Alliance, 
and  was  its  soul.  No  other  could  animate  so 
huge  a  thing.  Sublime  powers  are  requisite 
to  breathe  life  into  a  great  coalition.  He 
spent  part  of  each  year  on  the  Continent  lead- 
ing the  armies  of  Europe  against  their  com- 
mon foe.  H<^  routed  Louis  and  James  at  the 
battle  of  the  Boyne.  That  victory  assured  his 
throne.     He  conquered  at  Namur;  but  defeat 


William  the  Great  of  England  1 07 

on  the  battle-field  was  his  lot  more  often  than 
triumph.  His  victories  came  when  the  battle 
was  ended.  France  won  the  fight:  William 
carried  off  the  spoils;  and  in  1697  the  peace 
of  Ryswick  vindicated  the  statesmanship  of 
William,  when,  says  Green,  "for  the  first  time 
since  Richelieu's  day,  France  consented  to  a 
disadvantageous  peace;  in  spite  of  failures  and 
defeats  in  the  field  William's  policy  had  won." 
The  difficulties  with  which  the  king  coped 
were  legion.  A  new  power  given  the  people 
made  them  captious.  The  king,  though  the 
savior  of  England's  liberties,  was  goaded  al- 
most to  madness  by  being  trusted  less  than  the 
Stuarts.  This,  as  has  been  shown,  was  a  neces- 
sity of  the  Revolution,  but  none  the  less  harass- 
ing to  a  proud  spirit  for  that  reason.  He  was 
beleaguered  by  traitors.  Members  of  his  cabi- 
net were  plotting  for  the  return  of  James.  As 
in  the  case  of  his  famous  ancestor,  a  price  was 
put  upon  his  head.  James  offered  a  coronet 
to  the  assassin  of  the  king.  The  treasury  was 
depleted  by  the  iniquitous  reigns  of  Charles 
and  James.  The  coin  was  debased.  Conti- 
nental wars  were  a  source  of  expense  till  then 
unknown.  Taxes  were  in  consequence  high, 
and  dissatisfaction  prevalent.    The  Tories  were 


Io8  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

avowed  Jacobites,  and  as  soon  as  impending* 
fear  fell  from  them  by  the  coronation  of  Will- 
iam, leisure  and  opportunity  were  afforded  for 
every  species  of  iniquitous  practice  which  in- 
fected their  blood.  No  English  king  besides 
Cromwell  was  so  beset  by  foes,  and  no  king" 
except  Cromwell  was  so  great. 

In  William's  time  England  was  a  cesspool 
of  political  vices.  Honor  was  a  word  whose 
significance  was  lost.  To  know  the  extent  of 
the  perfidy  of  this  era,  let  a  man  read  Dal- 
rymple,  Macaulay,  and  the  Shrewsbury  corre- 
spondence. A  querulous  Parliament,  the  most 
stupendous  war  England  had  known  to  that 
hour,  plans  which  were  too  large  for  popular 
comprehension, — all  these  made  the  burdens 
of  the  king  almost  insupportably  weighty. 
Meantime  he  suffered,  but  England  grew 
great.  The  spell  of  his  genius  touched  even 
it  at  the  last. 

Before  proceeding  to  the  examination  of  the 
remarkable  constitutional  changes  which  be- 
long to  the  reign  of  King  William,  it  is  well 
to  pause  for  a  moment  to  note  those  qualities 
of  mind  and  heart  in  the  king,  which,  aside 
from  his  genius,  adapted  him  for  leadership 
in   the   regeneration   of  a   kingdom.      These, 


William  the  Great  of  England  1 09 

I  take  it,  are  five  in  number, — his  ability  to 
grasp  principles,  his  humaneness,  his  freedom 
from  bigotry,  his  self-forgetfulness,  and  his 
courage.  These  qualities  go  far  toward  mak- 
ing an  ideal  king.  The  first  implies  statesman- 
ship, which  was  displayed  on  all  occasions, 
and  led  to  the  adoption  of  Sunderland's  policy 
for  organizing  the  ministry  from  the  party  in 
power, — one  of  the  most  sagacious  expedients 
ever  resorted  to  in  government. 

William's  humaneness  was  of  incalculable 
worth  in  England.  The  people  were  spend- 
thrifts of  blood.  Tower  Hill  was  a  place  easy 
of  access;  English  mobs  had  been  proverb- 
ially ferocious.  The  terrible  penal  code  in 
vogue  more  than  a  hundred  years  later  leaves 
no  need  for  further  proof  of  the  truth  of  the 
statement.  William  was  granite  here.  No 
bloodshed  must  be  tolerated  on  his  enthrone- 
ment. He  was  as  humane  as  Cromwell  in  his 
administration.  The  result  was  what  we  might 
anticipate.  The  value  of  such  precedent  was 
priceless.  It  taught  England  that  political  sta- 
bility could  be  secured  without  constant  ap- 
peal to  a  headsman's  ax  and  gibbet.  His  act 
of  amnesty  was  a  service  to  mankind  in  the 
spirit  it  exhibited.     In  this  sketch  there  is  no 


no  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

desire  to  obscure  any  facts  in  the  life  of  King 
William.  All  will  bear  inspection.  Three  acts 
may  be  adduced,  which,  more  than  any  others, 
would  seem  to  smirch  his  name.  The  mob 
massacre  of  the  De  Witts,  the  attack  on  Mons 
subsequent  to  the  treaty  of  peace,  and  the 
massacre  of  Glencoe.  It  may  be  said  that  the 
most  hostile  and  virulent  criticism  has  not 
been  able,  in  any  proper  sense,  to  connect 
William  with  these.  Whether  he  was  culpable 
or  not,  we  do  not  know.  He  may  not  have 
risen  enough  above  the  spirit  of  his  age  to  have 
been  free  from  taint;  but  it  is  safe  to  allege 
that  the  tenor  of  his  life,  the  humanity  of  his 
behavior,  do  not  favor  the  theory  of  his  guilt 
in  these  cases.  Let  a  man's  history  answer 
for  his  conduct,  and  the  motives  which  prompt 
it  when  that  conduct  is  uncertain.  This  is  a 
just  and  magnanimous  rule. 

Self-forgetfulness  had  ample  room  for  exer- 
cising itself  in  his  case.  Had  he  been  other 
than  he  was,  he  could  have  deluged  his  realm 
with  blood.  He  chose  to  pass  by  ingratitude, 
even  treason.  He  won  Shrewsbury,  and  dis- 
armed Marlborough  by  seeming  unconscious- 
ness of  their  treason.  With  him  the  end  to 
which  his  life  was  dedicated  was  supreme.    He 


"William  the  Great  of  England  1 1 1 

was  nothing;  it  was  all.  In  that  attitude  lie 
unknown  possibilities  for  good. 

The  king's  freedom  from  religious  bigotry 
is  one  of  his  noblest  traits.  That  is  always  a 
safe  mark  of  a  manly  soul.  Hallam  says,  "He 
was  in  all  things  superior  to  his  subjects;" 
certainly  in  none  more  remarkably  than  this. 
History  has  memory  of  few  more  noble 
utterances  than  his  declaration  against  relig- 
ious persecution.  In  this,  too,  the  mantle  of 
William  the  Silent  seems  to  have  fallen  upon 
him.  Under  him  Dissenters  were  allowed 
rights  which  were  inalienably  theirs.  Such 
was  his  catholicity  of  sentiment  that  he  would 
have  removed  the  ban  from  the  Catholic  as 
well;  and  it  was  one  of  the  charges  brought 
against  him  by  virulent  opposition  that  he 
connived  at  popery. 

William  was  courageous.  That  is  a  king's 
trait.  He  compelled  the  admiration  of  the 
greatest  soldiers  of  Europe  by  his  dauntless 
courage.  As  a  lad,  he  led  his  soldiers,  and 
stood  in  the  midst  of  battle's  tempest.  He 
could  in  one  way,  he  said,  prevent  seeing  his 
country  conquered,  and  that  was  "By  dying 
in  the  last  ditch."  Only  heroism  pronounces 
such  words.    His  passing  into  Ireland  to  van- 


1 1 2  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

quish  James,  when  treason  was  rife  in  Eng- 
land, Green  pronounces  one  of  the  bravest 
deeds  of  his  heroic  life. 

Those  changes  in  government,  some  of 
which  are  valuable  beyond  computation,  may 
be  mentioned,  but  not  elaborated.  Such  are: 
Triennial  Parliaments,  vote  of  annual  supplies, 
the  Mutiny  Act,  establishment  of  the  Bank 
of  England  and  the  reform  of  the  debased 
coin,  the  national  debt  and  its  effect  in  render- 
ing the  revolution  stable,  change  of  ministry 
with  change  of  party,  Religious  Toleration  Act, 
allowing  Scotland  its  own  Church,  annual  as- 
sembly of  Parliament,  and  the  right  of  Parlia- 
mentary inquiry.  What  other  period  of  equal 
length,  or  thrice  that,  can  produce  such  a  cata- 
logue of  signal  gains  for  posterity?  Divine 
right  of  kings  became  an  extinct  doctrine,  the 
maintenance  of  a  standing  army  without  the 
consent  of  Parliament  was  rendered  impos- 
sible, the  national  debt  became  a  defense  rather 
than  a  danger, — these  and  more  were  the  fruits 
of  a  reign  of  thirteen  years.  Beyond  contro- 
versy, this  proved  an  illustrious  reign. 

William  was  an  unpopular  sovereign.  At 
a  two-century  remove  it  is  hard  to  give  this 
credence.     He  had  in  the  largest   sense  be- 


William  the  Great  of  England  1 13 

friended  England.  He  had  rescued  her  from 
an  infamy  unspeakable.  He  had  lifted  her 
from  a  state  of  dependency  on  her  most  deter- 
mined foe,  and  made  her  the  chief  government 
of  Europe.  Such  services  as  these  merit  a  re- 
ward as  generous  as  the  service  was  illustrious. 
As  logic,  this  reasoning  is  perfect;  as  history, 
it  is  wide  of  the  truth.  England  had  few  more 
unpopular  sovereigns  than  William.  This 
statement  is  not  flattering  to  the  intelligence 
of  the  English  people,  but  is  undeniably  true. 
It  is  not  difficult  to  discover  reasons  for  this 
unpopularity,  a  few  of  which  may  be  assigned. 
The  king's  taciturnity  militated  against 
him.  The  easy  suavity  of  manner  character- 
istic of  Charles  II  and  Marlborough  he  did 
not  possess.  His  was  a  great  nature,  but  was 
not  voluble.  There  were  deeps  in  his  heart 
men  knew  not  of.  But  to  his  best  beloved  he 
appeared  a  princely  soul  apart  from  his  inherit- 
ance. Portland  knew  him,  and  his  wife  loved 
him  to  the  verge  of  adoration.  His  voice  was 
harsh,  his  manner  dry  and  brusque.  He  had 
no  easy  joviality.  He  was  not  a  figure  framed 
for  court  society.  Easy  affability  he  did  not 
possess.  Worth,  manliness,  courage,  and  vir- 
tue were  his ;  but  these,  men  could  not  see,  and 

8 


114  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

so  it  is  easy  to  discover  that  the  geniality 
which  had  been  so  marked  in  the  manner  of 
Charles,  but  was  so  lacking  in  that  of  William, 
should  have  brought  a  contrast  to  the  king's 
hurt.  Men  are  easily  deceived.  They  do  not 
pierce  beneath  the  thin  disguise  of  externality 
to  discover  genuine  and  unapproachable  merit. 
Another  chief  cause  of  William's  unpopular- 
ity was  his  partiality  to  his  own  countrymen. 
He  loaded  Portland  with  honors.  He  gave 
great  estates  to  those  who  had  been  his  life- 
long friends.  There  is  a  sense  in  which  this 
charge  is  just.  If  by  undue  partiality  is  meant 
that  he  was  impolitic,  then  there  can  be  no 
controverting  facts :  it  was  impolitic.  To  have 
dispossessed  him  of  all  those  friends  who  had 
counted  life  for  his  sake  a  worthless  thing, 
would  have  given  him  a  popularity  he  did  not 
possess.  The  Dutch  constituents  of  the  king 
stood,  as  the  politicians  supposed,  between 
themselves  and  preferment.  This  was  a  sin 
they  could  not  pardon.  By  ingratitude  such 
as  the  Stuarts  had  schooled  England  to  expect, 
William  could  have  crowned  himself  with 
ephemeral  popularity;  but  this  man  was  not  of 
the  Stuart  sort.  In  that  lay  his  pre-eminent 
fitness  for  kingship.     He  had  a  heart.     He 


William  the  Great  of  England  1 1 5 

loved  his  friends.  He  really  supposed  that 
being  a  king  did  not  disqualify  him  from  being 
a  man,  and  acting  a  manly  part.  He  had  a 
memory  for  those  whose  life  had  been  to  do  his 
service.  He  was  indiscreet  sometimes  in  load- 
ing his  tried  friends  with  unneeded  honors, 
but  such  error  may  easily  be  forgotten. 
Would  the  Stuarts  had  been  given  to  such 
weakness  and  such  vice!  But  if  sacrifices  for 
his  sake  were  thought  on,  the  second  Charles 
would  hold  his  hand  to  be  kissed  by  the  men 
who  had  risked  all  and  lost  all  for  his  sake, 
and  pay  for  a  life  of  service  so  devoted  as  to 
make  succeeding  generations  marvel,  by  a 
"God  bless  you,  my  old  friend."  William  was 
a  man  both  before  and  after  his  coronation. 
Gratitude  was  a  peculiarity  of  his  character. 
He  held  to  his  friends  with  a  tenacity  which 
knew  no  abatement,  even  when  it  threatened 
the  stability  of  his  throne. 

There  is,  too,  another  fact  which  must  not 
be  forgotten  or  obscured.  The  king  was 
among  a  race  of  statesmen  to  whom  political 
virtue  was  a  jest.  This  melancholy  phase  of 
this  period  has  been  adverted  to,  but  can  not 
receive  too  much  emphasis.  Every  man 
seemed  determined  to  sell  his  honor's  birth- 


Il6  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

right.  Members  of  the  king's  ministry,  the 
commanders  of  his  fleet  and  of  his  army,  were 
traitors  to  his  every  interest.  Loyalty  was  a 
word  whose  meaning  they  did  not  know.  The 
record  of  the  shameless  treasons  of  those  times 
makes  modern  England  blush  at  the  mere  re- 
membrance. That  a  king  thus  beset,  with  his 
halls  crowded  with  traitors,  should  have  leaned 
as  on  a  staff  upon  friends  whose  loyalty  was 
as  certain  and  inalienable  as  the  affections  of 
the  lovely  woman  who  loved  to  be  called  his 
wife,  is  not  strange  nor  blamable.  It  is  rather 
the  wisdom  of  the  profoundest  statesman  of  his 
times. 

William  was  a  foreigner.  This  was  a  fruit- 
ful source  of  unpopularity.  He  was  a  native 
of  the  one  country  which  had  contested  with 
England  the  sovereignty  of  the  seas.  The  two 
commercial  countries  of  Europe  were  now  Eng- 
land and  Holland.  Such  rivalry  as  existed 
between  Genoa  and  Venice  burned  hot  be- 
tween the  country  which  gave  William  birth 
and  the  one  over  which  he  swayed  scepter  as 
king.  In  ports  even  at  the  antipodes  the 
Dutch  and  English  merchantmen  were  com- 
petitors. Englishmen  were  therefore  jealous 
of  any  favor  shown  to  their  commercial  rivals. 


William  the  Great  of  Englaud  H7 

William  belonged  to  that  nation;  and  every 
sign  of  love  for  his  country  or  his  countrymen 
seemed  to  their  distempered  vision  a  slight  to 
England  and  Englishmen.  He  and  those  he 
favored  were  Hollanders.  The  first  they  could 
forget,  the  second  never. 

What  England  had  suffered  from  the  in- 
troduction of  foreign  troops  ought,  however, 
to  be  urged  as  a  slight  palliation  for  this  feel- 
ing. Even  William's  government  was  con- 
stantly threatened  by  the  French  and  Irish 
army;  and  during  the  encroachments  of 
Charles  I,  with  his  usual  perfidy,  he  planned 
deluging  his  kingdom  with  Catholic  battal- 
ions. Since  the  time  of  William  the  Con- 
queror, the  English  had  tended  toward  insu- 
larity. Their  aversion  to  foreign  encroach- 
ments had  been  as  bitter  as  winter.  The 
Church  of  Rome  was  detested  mainly  for  this 
reason.  It  thus  arose  naturally,  if  not  wisely, 
that  the  foreign  troops  of  William's  guard 
were  endured  with  distrust,  and,  in  1697,  over 
the  manifest  protest  of  the  king  and  in  spite 
of  his  service,  they  were  compelled  to  return 
to  Holland.  This  spirit  of  rancorous  dislike 
to  what  was  foreign  was  no  insignificant  fac- 
tor in  the  unpopularity  of  William.    His  splen- 


1 1 8  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

did  service,  when  fresh  in  memory,  in  spite  of 
their  natural  dislike,  won  him  the  flitting  popu- 
larity he  possessed. 

The  English  statesmen  who  gathered  about 
William  the  king  were  men  of  superior  abili- 
ties. Danby,  Shrewsbury,  Halifax,  Devon- 
shire, Montague,  Marlborough,  Sunderland, 
Godolphin,  Portland,  Somers,  were  men  who, 
for  strength  of  intellect,  grasp  of  mind,  and 
variety  of  genius,  have  not  often  been  paral- 
leled in  the  annals  of  England.  With  a  few 
notable  exceptions,  they  were  as  prominent  for 
statesmanlike  parts  as  they  were  lacking  in 
patriotism.  Their  genius  was  as  brilliant  as 
their  honor  was  tarnished;  yet  "compared  with 
William,"  says  the  judicial  Hallam,  "the  states- 
men who  surround  his  throne  sink  into  insig- 
nificance." Green  calls  him  "a  born  states- 
man." Statescraft  seemed  his  daily  bread. 
His  capacity  for  mastering  men,  for  forming 
gigantic  coalitions,  for  wringing  victory  from 
sore  defeat,  for  bearing  up  against  seas  of  ad- 
versity, for  holding  himself  in  imperturbable 
calm  amidst  the  very  tragedies  of  his  career, 
seems  incredible.  Viewed  from  whatever 
point,  his  plans  were  great, — great  in  moral 
heroism,  great  in  the  courage  that  can  brook 


William  the  Great  of  England  119 

delay,  great  in  achieving  results  which  shall 
endure. 

Statesmanship  is  an  appeal  from  bodily  to 
intellectual  force.  With  it  armies  are  of  sec- 
ondary value;  and  its  introduction  is  a  sup- 
planting of  soldier  by  diplomat.  To  Louis  XI 
of  France  men  owe  a  debt  difficult  to  repay, 
for  he  it  was  who  shifted  the  fray  from  the 
field  of  battle  to  the  cabinet.  His  was  a  power- 
ful though  a  depraved  intellect.  But,  though 
he  substituted  cunning  for  force,  in  it  were  the 
roots  from  which  grew  that  large  and  benefi- 
cent life  we  name  statesmanship.  Hitherto 
France  had  seemed  to  have  a  monopoly  of 
diplomatic  skill.  William  the  Silent  and  Crom- 
well had  been  the  most  illustrious  statesmen 
who  had  arisen  outside  of  France.  Louis  XIV 
had  ruled  Europe  through  his  crafty  di- 
plomacy. 

Statesmanship  in  the  sense  of  manipulating 
great  interstate  interests,  found  no  place  with 
Caesar  or  Augustus;  for  Rome  was  the  one 
nation,  and  did  not  treat,  but  conquered.  And 
so  it  is  safe  to  affirm  that  the  greatest  inter- 
national statesmen  who  had  lived  thus  far  were 
Richelieu  and  William  III,  and  the  coronation 
of  William  introduced  England  into  the  affairs 


120  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

of  continental  Europe,  as  it  had  not  been  in 
its  long  and  splendid  history.  The  wars  of 
the  Edwards  for  the  possession  of  French 
principalities,  as  well  as  the  insignia  of  roy- 
alty, were  mere  contests  between  two  king- 
doms. There  the  belligerency  ended.  At  that 
period  diplomacy  was  a  thing  little  under- 
stood. Gigantic  coalitions,  such  as  burdened 
the  world  with  armies,  and  made  Europe  the 
theater  of  battle,  were  inaugurated  by  the  en- 
thronement of  William  III.  The  coalitions  of 
Henry  VIII  and  Elizabeth  were  bagatelles 
compared  with  what  came  later.  Cromwell 
made  England  a  word  of  mighty  import;  but 
he  dominated  in  the  councils  as  an  august 
power,  whose  wrath,  when  kindled  but  a  little, 
meant  disaster.  Cromwell  was  primarily  a 
soldier;  William,  primarily  a  statesman.  This 
marks  the  difference  in  their  genius.  By 
statesmanship,  William  made  England  a  proud 
figure  in  deciding  the  destinies  of  Europe,  and 
there  could  be  no  more  isolation.  The  cam- 
paigns of  Marlborough  and  Wellington,  with 
all  the  supremacy  they  gave,  were  fruits  of 
William's  diplomacy.  "An  alliance  was  made" 
became  a  phrase  introduced  into  the  nomen- 
clature  of   European    statescraft    as    soon    as 


William  the  Great  of  England  121 

William  came  into  power.  He  organized  the 
greatest  combination  Europe  had  seen  since 
the  Crusades.  That  is  his  genius.  He  lost 
battles,  but  ruled  Europe.  Not  the  strength 
of  his  armies,  but  the  might  of  his  diplomacy 
made  him  the  prince  omnipotent  among  the 
statesmen  of  his  time.  His  coronation 
changed  England  from  an  insular  government 
to  a  continental  realm.  He  flung  her  into  the 
vortex  of  continental  affairs,  from  which  there 
can  be  no  escape.  He  made  England  a  force 
even  as  he  had  previously  made  the  Batavian 
Republic.  William's  death,  we  are  told, 
"shook  the  Grand  Alliance"  to  its  very  base. 
The  interpretation  of  all  the  acts  of  his  diver- 
sified career  is  to  be  sought  in  one  word — 
statesmanship. 

In  recalling  scenes  among  the  mountains, 
one  will  always  linger  longer  than  others,  like 
a  lover  when  the  guests  are  gone.  Its  sub- 
lime solitudes,  its  rocky  summits  whitened  with 
unwasting  snows,  its  armies  of  silent  pines 
that  stand  and  wait  as  for  the  general's  "For- 
ward," the  lake  whose  chalice  seems  to  hold 
the  blue  washed  from  the  sky  through  cen- 
turies,— even  so,  one  thing  greets  me  first,  and 
challenges  me  last,  in  thinking  of  William  III, 


122  The  Poefs  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

imperial  crag  among  the  mountain  fastnesses 
of  history.  His  royal  statesmanship  captivates 
my  thought,  and  casts  its  spell  over  me  as  a 
sunset  does. 

Yet  the  choicer  characteristics  of  this  man 
were  visible  only  to  the  few ;  and  all  the  splen- 
dor of  his  achievements  and  the  supremacy  of 
his  genius  find  fitting  complement  in  his  life, 
and  termination  in  his  death.  His  love,  like 
his  genius,  was  profound;  and  at  the  death  of 
Mary,  who  had  been  so  beautiful  in  her  affec- 
tion for  him,  he  raved  like  a  storm  at  mid- 
night. He  died  as  he  had  lived — a  man.  "No 
weakness  or  querulousness,"  says  the  brilliant 
historian  of  his  reign,  "disgraced  the  noble 
close  of  that  noble  career."  In  the  midst  of 
paroxysms  of  pain,  he  was  thoughtful  and 
courteous.  He  planned  for  England  to  the 
last;  and  when  too  weak  to  take  his  place  upon 
the  throne,  he  wrote  urging  the  union  of  Eng- 
land and  Scotland.  To  the  end,  as  all  his  life, 
his  thought  was  for  others,  and  not  for  self. 
Men  knew  he  prayed,  from  the  fragments  of 
petitions  that  fell  from  his  lips,  as  we  know 
in  darkness  the  sea  is  near  by  the  music  of 
waves  upon  the  rocks.  He  called  for  the  dear- 
est friend  of  his  life,  and  when  no  longer  able 


William  the  Great  of  England  123 

to  speak,  took  his  hand  and  pressed  it  fondly 
to  his  breast.  Thus  he  died;  and  above  his 
heart  they  found  a  ring  of  gold  and  a  lock  of 
Mary's  hair.  So  set  that  sun  whose  beams 
have  given  to  England  an  unsetting  day. 


The  Greater  English  Elegies 

The  elegy  springs  from  the  heart  as  flowers 
from  the  grave.  It  is  grief  finding  a  voice. 
And  so  long  as  hearts  love  and  lose,  so  long 
will  the  elegy  be  native  to  us  as  tears.  If  you 
shall  listen  to  the  voices  of  the  wind  at  night, 
you  shall  seem  to  hear  elegiacs.  Nature  turns 
to  sobbing  with  such  naturalness  as  brings 
her  into  companionship  with  hearts  that  break 
and  voices  that  find  their  utterance  a  sob. 
Since  graves  are  always  freshly  made,  and 
lives  freshly  bereft,  the  elegy,  least  of  all 
poetry,  can  become  archaic. 

English  literature  is  genius  trying  all  instru- 
ments of  music.  Certain  it  is  that  the  elegies 
here  characterized  have  no  peers,  but  stand  a 
sacred  and  solitary  quaternion.  They  are  here 
mentioned  in  their  chronological  order.  This 
apostolic  succession  runs:  Milton,  Gray,  Shel- 
ley, Tennyson;  and  the  productions:  Lycidas, 
Elegy  in  a  Country  Churchyard,  Adonais,  In 
Memoriam, — and  the  arch  spans  two  centuries 
of  elegiacs.  With  one  exception,  the  poems 
are  personal.  Gray's  elegy  is  impersonal. 
124 


The  Greater  English  Elegies  125 

Sorrow  usually  dissipates  when  general.  We 
can  not  commiserate  men-kind  save  in  man- 
kind. This  personal  element  is  apparent  in 
all  grief.  Elegies  are  the  soul  crying  aloud, 
"Absalom,  my  son,  my  son!"  and  in  those  rare 
instances  when  not  special  we  still  seem  brood- 
ing as  at  a  grave.  This  mourning  dove  is 
mourning  for  our  dead.  We  reduce  to  the 
singular  all  pluralizations  of  grief.  In  Thana- 
topsis,  an  elegy  in  a  noble  vein,  the  spirit  is 
individualized  in  the  closing  strain: 

"So  live,  that  when  thy  summons  comes  to  join 
The  innumerable  caravan  that  moves 
To  that  mysterious  realm  where  each  shall  take 
His  chamber  in  the  silent  halls  of  death, 
Thou  go  not  like  the  quarry  slave  at  night, 
Scourged    to    his    dungeon,    but    sustained    and 

soothed 
By  an  unfaltering  trust,  approach  thy  grave 
Like  one  who  wraps  the  drapery  of  his  couch 
About  him,  and  lies  down  to  pleasant  dreams." 

It  is  "thy  death"  to  which  all  this  accord  of 
music  points.  Milton,  Shelley,  Tennyson, 
poets,  but  men  none  the  less,  loved  friends, 
and  since  death  came,  each  lifted  up  his  voice 
and  wept  like  one  of  old.  Milton's  friend,  Ed- 
ward King,  died  in   shipwreck  on  the  Irish 


126  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

Sea;  Shelley's  friend,  that  modern  Greek,  John 
Keats,  died  under  the  blue  of  Roman  skies, 
calling,  "I  feel  the  violets  growing  over  me." 
Tennyson's  friend,  Arthur  Hallam,  a  youth  of 
rare  though  unfulfilled  promise,  died  and 
found  the  health  he  sought  in  heaven.  These 
poems  are  apostrophes,  while  Gray's  is  a 
monologue,  as  of  one  who  sits  alone  in  the 
shadow  of  the  yew  in  calm  beside  a  grave. 

Life  itself  is  not  more  stimulating  to  fancy 
than  death.  Poetry  seems  native  to  both  es- 
tates. Above  the  gorge  of  Niagara,  in  the 
fringes  of  a  pine  wood,  all  but  in  hearing  of 
the  clamor  of  the  Falls,  you  may  find  a  soli- 
tary grave,  sunken,  unkept,  the  grave-stone 
leaning  like  age  without  a  staff,  and  on  the 
stone  a  name  of  foreign  flavor — alas!  a 
woman's  name  besides — and  a  phrase  to  tell 
where  she  was  born  across  the  seas,  and  when, 
an  ocean  between  her  cradle  and  her  grave, 
she  died.  This,  no  more;  yet  your  eyes  will 
grow  wet  with  tears  as  you  stoop  to  read  the 
epitaph.  A  woman  lying  so  alone!  And  that 
stranger's  grave  presents  all  the  pathos  of 
poetry  and  all  the  tragedy  of  life.  Small  won- 
der, then,  a  poet  should  kindle  to  pity  and  sob 
the  woe  we  feel.     Longfellow  has  caught  this 


The  Greater  English  Elegies  1 27 

somber  spirit  in  his  lovely  prelude  to  Hia- 
watha.   Hear  him  mourn: 

"Ye  who  sometimes  in  your  rambles 
Through  the  green  lanes  of  the  country, 
Where  the  tangled  barberry-bushes 
Hang  their  tufts  of  crimson  berries 
Over  stone  walls  gray  with  mosses, 
Pause  by  some  neglected  graveyard, 
For  a  while  to  muse  and  ponder 
On  a  half-effaced  inscription, 
Written  with  little  skill  of  song-craft, 
Homely  phrases,  yet  each  letter 
Full  of  hope,  and  yet  of  heart-break; 
Full  of  all  the  tender  pathos 
Of  the  here  and  the  hereafter." 

And  in  this  same  temper,  Gray  has  wept 
aloud.  The  "Elegy  in  a  Country  Churchyard" 
is  an  exquisite  conception,  and  the  execution 
is  as  exquisite.  He  summons  all  the  acces- 
sories of  grief — ivy-mantled  tower,  twilight 
solitude,  gloaming  in  which  the  dim  past  with 
its  dead  dares  walk  abroad.  Death  is  a  leveler; 
for  life's  pomp  and  power,  as  its  mute,  inglori- 
ous inconsequence  come  to  a  common  home. 
This  is  what  Horace  said;  this  is  what  history 
says;  and  this  is  what  poetry  must,  in  truth, 
declare.  This  elegy  is  somber  as  an  autumn 
sky.     We  see  the  pageant  we  name  life  pass 


128  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

like  a  roseate  dream.  It  glows  with  morning 
and  high  hope;  but  evening  dims  the  glow 
and  night  is  here  before  we  thought  the  day 
had  well  begun.  In  this  elegy  we  are  scarcely 
touched  to  tears.    We  are  something  less. 

"The  touch  of  a  vanished  hand, 
And  the  sound  of  a  voice  that  is  still," 

would  make  us  weep;  but  Gray  had  not  that 
dower  of  passion.  Fervor  slept  in  his  spirit. 
Impersonal  and  passionless,  what  he  can  do 
and  does  is  to  bring  the  gray  of  gloaming  over 
our  spirits;  and  that  is  a  gracious  state  for 
thought,  and  gives  it  wings.  Gray's  elegy 
leaves  us  in  the  churchyard. 

But  "Lycidas,"  in  strong  contrast,  is  in- 
tensely personal.  The  poem  is  a  sob.  'Tis  Mil- 
ton weeps.  A  college  friend  is  dead,  drowned 
on  the  seas,  but  leaves  a  friend  to  weep  for  him, 
whose  lament  will  give  the  dead  immortality. 
In  the  "Elegy  in  a  Country  Churchyard,"  a 
scholar,  a  book-lover,  a  recluse,  cons  over  to 
himself  the  story  of  the  flitting  pageant  men 
call  life.  In  "Lycidas,"  a  friend  mourns  for  a 
friend  beside  the  sea,  in  words  sad  as  the  sea's 
own  music.  A  bereft  heart  speaks.  There  is 
no  nobler  elegy.     "In  Memoriam"  is  sadder, 


The  Greater  English  Elegies  129 

but  we  hear  no  nobler  music.  Some  of 
Milton's  grandest  strength  is  evidenced  in 
"Lycidas" — his  vigor,  his  music,  as  if  Milton 
could  ever  forget  music!  It  was  part  of  his 
life.  No  greater  master  of  musical  expression 
ever  attempted  putting  thought  to  speech. 
The  word  descriptive  of  Gray's  elegy  is,  "Fin- 
ished." It  is  a  gem  daintily  set.  "Lycidas"  is 
a  gem  whose  cutting  and  setting  are  matters  of 
lesser  moment.  The  gem  is  rare  enough  to  be 
a  star  in  a  queen's  coronet.  Not  but  what 
"Lycidas"  is  a  finished  poem,  but  that  is  not  its 
chief  excellency.  Strength  of  passion  and  sub- 
limity of  thought  speak.  Gray's  elegy  says, 
"All  things  end."  Milton's  elegy  says,  "To- 
day dies,  but  to-morrow  dawns."  This  friend, 
wrecked  on  the  seas  and  buried  in  its  blue 
sepulcher,  is  not  thought  of  as  dead.  Immor- 
tality is  not  a  phrase,  but  a  fact.  His  dirge 
rises  into  a  paean  of  triumph.  The  sobbing 
ceases,  and  the  voice  is  as 

"The  song  of  them  that  triumph, 
The  shout  of  them  that  feast." 

"Lycidas"  is  written  in  the  Christian  temper, 
and  speaks  the  Christian  hope.  It  does  not 
despair,  although  it  weeps.      "Weeping  may 

9 


13°  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

endure  for  a  night,  but  joy  cometh  in  the 
morning."  "Lycidas"  is  an  ode  framed  after 
the  Pauline  pattern,  in  which  the  shout  breaks 
off  the  lamentation — "O  death,  where  is  thy 
sting?  O  grave,  where  is  thy  victory?"  Such 
is  the  destiny  of  the  Christian  elegy.  It  is  as 
a  dawn,  which  forgets  its  gray  in  the  crimson 
and  glory  of  sunrise. 

And  now  we  listen  to  another  lute.  Shelley 
laments  his  Adonais.  In  point  of  eminence, 
Shelley's  theme — Keats — is  worthiest  among 
the  elegies ;  and  he  has  written  a  noble  lament. 
Shelley  was  genius,  using  light  for  ink;  and 
"Adonais"  is  in  his  softer  tones.  The  wild  re- 
bellion which  spake  in  "Queen  Mab,"  and  in 
"Prometheus  Unbound,"  is  all  but  silent  here. 
Shelley  needed  softening.  So  rare  his  music, 
more  the  pity  it  grew  strident  so  often.  This 
elegy  from  the  standpoint  of  poetry  is  sur- 
prisingly beautiful.  Those  touches  for  which 
his  hand  was  noted,  are  here  in  affluence. 
Chaste  passages  are  abundant  as  violets  in 
springtime.  To  read  is  to  reread  with  grow- 
ing delight.  He  does  not  weary,  but  entices. 
Genius  bewailing  genius  is  not  a  sight  so  com- 
mon as  to  grow  commonplace.     It  were  dim- 


The  Greater  English  Elegies  131 

cult  to  conceive  a  sweeter  or  more  varied  ex- 
pression of  grief. 

"Lost  echo  sits  amid  the  voiceless  mountains, 
And  feeds  her  grief  with  his  remembered  lay." 

"Grief  made  the  young  Spring  wild,  and  she  threw 
down 
Her  kindling  buds  as  if  she  Autumn  were, 
Or  they  dead  leaves." 

"And  love  taught  grief  to  fall  like  music  from  his 
tongue." 

Shelley's  expression  of  grief  leaves  little  to 
be  desired,  but  his  earth  lacks  a  sky.  He 
knows  no  hope,  and  who  lacks  hope  is  a  poor 
comforter  to  stand  beside  a  grave.  Shelley 
was  atheist  sometimes,  and  pantheist  at  others. 
His  theology,  like  that  of  Emerson,  was  cha- 
otic and  variable.  "Adonais"  is  pantheistic, 
and  pantheism  is  a  poor  boon  to  a  sorrowing 
spirit. 

"Death  feeds  on  thy  mute  voice,  and  laughs  at  our 
despair." 

But  beside  our  grave  the  soul  cries  out,  and 
will  not  be  silenced.  Soul  cries,  "He  is  not 
dead;  he  could  not  die."    The  soul  feeds  on 


132  The  Poefs  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

immortality.     So  Shelley,  the  hunger  on  him, 

cries: 

"Naught    we    know    dies;    shall   that   alone    which 
knows 
Be  as  a  sword  consumed  before  the  sheath 
By  sightless  lightning?" 

"He  is  made  one  with  nature." 

"He  is  a  portion  of  that  loveliness 
Which  once  he  made  more  lovely." 

"The  One  remains,  the  many  change  and  pass." 

You  can  not  well  conceive  a  sadder  strain. 
Hopelessness  made  vocal.  George  Eliot's 
"O,  may  I  join  the  choir  invisible,"  is  of  the 
same  temper,  though  the  pantheism  is  more 
adroitly  hidden.  Both  voices  choke  with  de- 
spair. The  antithesis  between  the  triumphant 
hope  of  "Lycidas"  and  the  dull  despair  of  "Ado- 
nais"  is  sharp  and  tragic.  The  poet  to  weep 
beside  a  grave  is  he  whose  vision  is  so  keen 
as  to  see  beyond  it. 

Latest  begotten  of  elegies  is  "In  Memo- 
riam."  It  is  the  longest,  and,  all  things  con- 
sidered, the  noblest  elegy  man  has  indited. 
This  is  a  sob  like  Rachel  weeping  for  her 
slain;  a  cry  like  David,  "O  Absalom,  my  son!" 
There  is  no  lack  of  passion  here.    "In  Memo- 


The  Greater  English  Elegies  J33 

riam"  is  an  argument  of  human  life,  and  runs 
the  gamut — labor,  pain,  tragedy,  consolation, 
doubt,  faith,  endurance,  triumph,  death,  im- 
mortality, the  passionate  beseeching, 

"O  would  that  my  tongue  could  utter 
The  thoughts  that  arise  in  me!" 

The  age  is  mirrored.  It  glooms  with  doubt, 
but  brightens  into  hope  at  last.  Tennyson  is 
no  agnostic,  but  theist;  who,  though  doubts 
assail  and  storms  beat  hard,  will  still  hold  in 
the  gloom  and  tempest,  knowing  the  world 
to  be  meaningless  and  life  an  irony  unless 
God  be  hid  in  history.  I  think  Tennyson  emi- 
nently exponential,  specially  so  here.  He 
glasses  his  age.  A  work  of  art,  be  it  painting 
or  poem,  will  probably  present  two  diverse 
characteristics — the  age  element  and  the  age- 
less element — the  latter  being  that  fiber  of  liter- 
ature which  is  unchanging  and  eternal,  the 
former  being  the  contagion  of  the  era.  Now, 
Tennyson  belonged  to  an  age  when  agnosti- 
cism was  wrestling  with  faith  like  some  tall 
giant.  "We  do  not  know"  is  the  sad  maxim  of 
this  pathetic  philosophy.  If  we  have  God  to 
Father,  it  is  still  as  if  we  were  in  perpetual  or- 
phanage.   That  such  philosophy  will  be  som- 


134  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

ber  goes  without  the  saying.  The  gray  even- 
ing of  a  winter's  day  is  not  so  despairing  as 
such  a  theory  of  existence.  And  in  Tennyson 
is  there  impress  of  this  dubitative.  His  larger 
vision  denies  the  negation;  his  lesser,  fears  lest 
it  be  true.  The  words  of  King  Arthur  on  the 
mere's  marge  are  indicative  of  Tennyson's 
own  attitude,  "For  all  my  mind  is  clouded 
with  a  doubt."  And  with  this  doubt  "In  Me- 
morian"  struggles.  A  beloved  friend  is  dead — • 
untimely  death  is  a  perplexing  fact  of  destiny. 
"Why,  why?"  sobs  the  bereft  soul;  and  no  one 
has  put  sobs  to  words  and  music  so  graciously 
as  Tennyson. 

The  poem  abounds  in  nobilities  of  thought 
and  utterance.  It  makes  articulate  the  struggle 
of  innumerable  souls;  and  at  the  last  this  is 
the  largest  service  genius  performs,  to  speak 
our  longings,  express  our  pain,  give  words  to 
our  silence,  so  that  we  say,  "This  is  my 
thought."  Well,  "In  Memoriam"  has  given 
words  to  a  burdened  and  a  sorrowing  heart 
forever.  It  can  not  be  dumb  any  more;  and 
hereafter  always  the  heart  will  be  beholden  to 
Alfred  Tennyson.  Nor  has  he  uttered  simply 
a  cry  of  pain,  but  has  constructed  a  philosophy 
of  life. 


The  Greater  English  Elegies  135 

"We  have  but  faith;  we  can  not  know" — 

this  keys  the  music  of  this  elegy.  Yet  God 
is.    Here  is  great  certainty: 

"Our  little  systems  have  their  day, 

They  have  their  day  and  cease  to  be; 
They  are  but  broken  lights  of  thee, 
And  Thou,  O  Lord,  art  more  than  they!" 

So  far  the  prelude;  but  the  poem  launches 
into  the  deep  of  its  theme  in  words  like  these: 

"I  hold  it  truth  with  him  who  sings 
To  one  clear  harp  in  divers  tones, 
That  men  may  rise  on  stepping-stones 
Of  their  dead  selves  to  higher  things." 

He  raises  the  profound  question  of  the  use  of 
suffering,  and  the  "far-off  interest  of  tears." 
"Never  morning  wore  to  evening  but  some 
heart  did  break;"  and  his  cause  of  woe  is, 

"My  Arthur,  whom  I  shall  not  see 
Till  all  my  widowed  race  be  run." 

But  concludes: 

"I  hold  it  true  whate'er  befall, 

I  feel  it  when  I  sorrow  most; 
'T  is  better  to  have  loved  and  lost, 
Than  never  to  have  loved  at  all." 


I36  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

The  poet's  hope  is,  We  shall  not  die.  There 
is  no  melting  into  nature  as  with  Shelley,  but 
assured  immortality: 

"My  own  dim  life  should  teach  me  this, 
That  life  shall  live  for  evermore, 
Else  earth  is  darkness  at  the  core, 
And  dust  and  ashes  all  that  is." 

Though  dead,  this  friend  is  not  forgotten: 

"And  dear  to  me,  as  sacred  wine 
To  dying  lips,  is  all  he  said." 

'T  is  immortality  is  very  sure : 

"There  no  shade  shall  last 
In  that  deep  dawn  behind  the  tomb;" 

"And  I  shall  know  him  when  we  meet, 
And  we  shall  sit  at  endless  feast 
Enjoying  each  the  other's  good." 

Then  doubt  breaks  into  hope,  and  dulls  its 
glow: 

"I  falter  where  I  firmly  trod, 

And  falling  with  my  weight  of  cares 

Upon  the  great  world's  altar-stairs, 

That  slope  through  darkness  up  to  God." 

It  was 

"God's  finger  touched  him,  and  he  slept." 


The  Greater  English  Elegies  137 

Doubt  shall  not  wrest  away  his  hope: 

"If  e'er  when  faith  had  fallen  asleep, 
I  heard  a  voice,  'Believe  no  more/ 
And  heard  an  ever-breaking  shore 
That  tumbled  in  the  Godless  deep: 

A  warmth  within  the  breast  would  melt 
The  freezing  reason's  colder  part, 
And,  like  a  man  in  wrath,  the  heart 

Stood  up,  and  answered,  'I  have  felt.'  " 

And  at  the  closing  of  this  greatest  elegy, 
the  poet,  like  a  swimmer  who,  shipwrecked, 
has  battled  with  the  sea  and  overcome  its 
might  and  wrath,  calls: 

"That  God  which  ever  lives  and  loves — 
One  God,  one  law,  one  element, 
And  one  far-off,  Divine  event, 
To  which  the  whole  creation  moves." 

And  in  that  conclusion  we  join  as  partici- 
pants in  triumph.  The  battle  was  not  ours, 
but  ours  the  victory.  And  in  the  poet's  grop- 
ing, his  catching  sight  of  God,  his  glooms 
that  all  but  conquer  hope,  his  holding  still  to 
the  great  God  till,  in  the  end,  God  breaks  upon 
him  like  a  sea, — this  struggle  and  this  triumph 
are  for  us. 


138  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

So  run  the  elegies.  Gray  leaves  us  in  the 
churchyard;  Shelley  gives  us  back  to  airs  and 
earth;  Tennyson  will  have  soul 

"Climb  the  great  world's  altar-stairs, 
That  slope  through  darkness  up  to  God;" 

And  Milton,  without  a  hush  of  doubt,  shouts 
"Immortality!" 


The  Soliloquies  of  Macbeth  and  Hamlet 

Speech  is  thinking  aloud.  Soliloquy  is 
thinking  aloud  to  one's  self.  A  monologue, 
such  as  was  a  conversation  or  lecture  of  Cole- 
ridge, is  nothing  other  than  a  soliloquy.  When 
a  soul  is  absorbed  in  itself  and  its  concerns,  be 
that  soul  alone  or  in  company,  there  will  be 
no  surprise  if  it  speak  for  its  own  ears.  In 
this  fact  is  a  unique  psychological  condition. 
Since  the  soul  is  conversant  with  its  own 
reasonings,  why  speak?  If  we  do  not  purpose 
the  impartation  of  truth  to  another,  why  coin 
thinking  into  words?  Yet  is  this  a  common 
ailment.  You  will  have  observed,  a  child 
thinks  aloud;  and  age  is  like  to  do  the  same. 
And  in  the  normal  state  of  soul,  when  life  is 
oppressed,  when  the  vastest  issues  break  like 
angry  oceans  in  the  spirit — then  thoughts 
seem  bent  on  uttering  themselves.  The  spirit, 
oblivious  to  all  things  save  its  own  interests, 
babbles  as  a  brook,  though  the  voice  is  scarce 
audible  to  the  speaker's  own  ears.  Absorbed 
is  the  condition  of  the  soliloquy;  and  it  is  easy 
to  see  that  a  soul  in  stress  will  tend  to  this  form 
of  utterance. 

i39 


14°  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

Such  is  the  state  of  Macbeth  and  Hamlet. 
They  are  unlike,  as  if  they  inhabited  different 
stars.  One  is  soldier,  the  other  civilian.  Mac- 
beth is  the  man  of  action,  Hamlet  the  man  of 
thought.  With  Macbeth,  the  sword  is  the  na- 
tive speech;  with  Hamlet,  words  are  drawn 
daggers.  Macbeth  is  matured  manhood; 
Hamlet  is  youth  with  despair  tugging  at  the 
heart,  and  watching  at  the  eyes.  In  these  trag- 
edies, Shakespeare  works  at  the  antipodes. 
He  shapes  two  spirits  so  diverse  as  to  seem 
creations  of  two  brains,  rather  than  one, — Mac- 
beth the  soldier,  and  Hamlet  the  thinker.  A 
soldier!  A  man  whose  argument  is  war,  whose 
soul  intones  its  speech  to  battle  tumult;  to 
whom  march  or  foray,  wild  charge  or  passion- 
less beleaguerment,  defeat  or  triumph,  are  the 
articulate  voices  of  the  soul.  Arms  dazzle. 
The  battle  thunder  bewilders,  confounds,  mad- 
dens, makes  heroic.  In  the  soldier  is  some- 
thing tense,  like  a  bent  bow.  He  is  perpetually 
on  the  verge  of  heroisms.  The  soldier  is  rest- 
less in  peace.  War  is  his  joy.  It  soothes  his 
spirit,  as  the  caress  of  a  fair  hand  a  sick  man's 
pulse.  In  war,  he  is  alive.  His  every  faculty 
is  alert.  His  ear  catches  whispers.  His  eyes 
sweep  the  hills  to  the  far  blue.     He  sees  all. 


The  Soliloquies  of  Macbeth  and  Hamlet        141 

The  battle  trumpet  sets  his  blood  on  fire.  Un- 
wittingly to  himself  his  hand  will  finger  his 
sword  hilt.  Prince  Maurice  of  Nassau  will  be 
lost  when  battle  ceases.  William  of  Orange 
will  drop  his  mask  and  glow  like  a  lover  when 
battle  thickens  about  him  like  winter's  storm. 
The  soldier's  dream  is  action;  and  Macbeth 
was  a  soldier. 

Hamlet  was  thinker.  He  was  a  lad  at  col- 
lege. Philosophy  intoxicated  him  as  rare 
wine.  His  was  a  Platonic  mind.  Thoughts 
filled  his  sky  thicker  than  the  stars.  Life 
seemed  to  him  a  chance  for  constructing  phi- 
losophies. See  Plato  and  Kant  and  Hegel, 
how  their  world  revolves  within  their  study 
walls!  Life  was  thought,  not  action.  Swords 
are  toys.  Battles  are  bagatelles.  Life's  grave 
and  eager  ministry  is  to  think,  to  build  immor- 
talities by  intellection;  to  sight  the  world's 
pageant  as  if  a  shadow  floated  o'er  the  hills. 
The  shadows  are  poor  temporalities;  the  hills 
alone  are  eternal.  So  will  the  thinker  under- 
rate the  actor,  who,  to  him,  seems  lacking  in 
depth.  His  life  runs  on  the  surface  as  bubbles. 
Plato  will  at  heart  pity  Themistocles ;  and  Aris- 
totle will  think  Alexander's  conquests  tawdry; 
and  Hegel  will  marvel  Napoleon  did  not  pre- 


142  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

fer  philosophy  to  imperial  sway.  The  soldier 
and  thinker,  the  achiever  and  conceiver,  stand 
at  opposite  quarters  of  the  sky,  like  sunrise  and 
sunset.  Name  them  Macbeth  and  Hamlet. 
Such  is  Shakespeare's  bold  attempt.  He  will 
create  the  dreamer  and  achiever.  And  of 
him  who  created  Falstaft*  and  King  Lear,  who 
can  say  this  to  be  beyond  his  powers? 

Now,  in  consonance  with  this  motif  of  these 
tragedies  is  the  totality  of  scheme  and  move- 
ment. They  never  forget.  In  no  display  of  his 
surprising  powers  has  Shakespeare  shown  him- 
self so  much  the  incomparable  genius.  In 
Hamlet  action  never  really  wakes:  in  Macbeth 
action  never  sleeps.  Events  drive  like  a  whirl- 
wind. Movement  is  everywhere.  Events 
march  as  the  army  of  which  Macbeth  was 
commander.  You  note  progress,  because  the 
movement  marches  past  you.  Events  trample 
on  each  other's  heels.  The  witch's  hell-broth, 
the  dawn  of  illicit  desire  for  kingship,  the 
mounting  the  steps  that  lead  to  the  throne; 
some  black  as  night,  some  slippery  with  blood, 
and  all  with  the  shame  of  crime  upon  them — 
treason,  murders,  suspicions,  flights,  conspir- 
acies, remorse,  defeats,  follow  fast  like  waves 
toward  a  shore.    You  are  caught  in  the  vortex 


The  Soliloquies  of  Macbeth  and  Hamlet        1 43 

of  events.  There  is  a  maelstrom  of  movement. 
The  contagion  of  action  fires  your  blood.  That 
is  the  drama  of  Macbeth. 

But  Hamlet  is  becalmed.  It  looks  to 
achievement,  but  does  not  reach  it.  Incident 
there  is,  but  no  action.  We  leave  matters  as 
we  find  them,  so  far  as  concerns  a  purpose. 
Polonius  dies  of  a  chance  sword-thrust. 
Ophelia,  delirious  for  love,  lies  dead  in  the 
shadowed  stream.  Hamlet  and  Laertes  die 
of  poisoned  foil-thrust.  Queen  Gertrude 
drinks  poisoned  wine  meant  for  Hamlet;  and 
King  Claudius  alone  is  slain  by  purposed 
action  of  the  prince.  Aside  from  this,  all  are 
happenings,  and,  in  a  true  sense,  that,  too,  is 
happening,  since  he  was  stung  to  it  by  his  own 
murder  through  the  king's  plan.  The  play 
lacks  the  quality  of  achievement.  Hamlet 
planned  to  avenge  his  father's  death,  but  knew 
not  how  to  compass  it;  and  the  tragedy  dies 
on  the  threshold  of  action.  Coleridge  has 
given  us  truth  in  his  acute  criticism.  Hamlet 
is  no  doer,  but  is  betrayed  into  action.  Mac- 
beth the  doer;  Hamlet  the  dreamer. 

Now  knowing  Macbeth  and  Hamlet,  we 
may  anticipate  their  soliloquies.  Macbeth  will 
be  objective,  Hamlet  subjective.     One  strikes 


144  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

against  a  foe;  the  other  meditates  striking  him- 
self. Between  Macbeth's  thought  and  resolu- 
tion there  is  not  a  hairbreadth  space.  Be- 
tween Hamlet  and  action  is  the  breadth  of  a 
world.  Yet,  strange  as  it  may  seem,  Hamlet 
passes  into  soliloquy  not  easier  than  Macbeth. 
The  man  of  action  and  the  man  of  thought, 
each  with  burdened  spirit,  con  their  thoughts 
aloud.  Tremendous  passions  speak  in  each, 
and  passion  has  one  language  and  one  method. 
In  Macbeth's  soliloquy,  you  always  feel 
action  hangs  on  the  skirts  of  thought.  In  Act 
I,  Scene  v,  the  soliloquy  is  big  with  action. 
Threats  leap  from  his  eyes.  And  in  Scene  vii 
Macbeth  is  still  true  to  his  dominating  idea: 

"If  it  were  done  when  't  is  done,  then  't  were  well 
It  were  done  quickly." 

"Do,"  "do,"  that  is  his  word.  His  sword  is 
ready,  his  fingers  on  the  hilt;  look  to  see  it 
leap  from  its  scabbard.  Observe,  the  deed  is 
uppermost.  No  introspection  is  visible.  The 
deed  and  its  consequences  fill  the  mind,  like 
waters,  to  the  brim.  In  Act  II,  Scene  i,  the 
thought  is  objective: 

"Is  this  a  dagger  which  I  see  hefore  me, 
The  handle  toward  my  hand?" 


The  Soliloquies  of  Macbeth  and  Hamlet       145 

And  the  dagger  is  for  Duncan.  He  medi- 
tates striking  for  kingdom.  There  is  menace 
in  his  suggestion;  and  his  look  at  the  dagger- 
handle  bodes  the  sleeping  Duncan  ill.  Were 
the  soliloquy  on  Hamlet's  lips,  Duncan  might 
sleep  quiet  as  a  child,  and  dream  no  harm;  but 
since  it  is  Macbeth  thinking  aloud,  Duncan, 
Ho!  Let  danger's  nightmare  wake  thee  from 
thy  sleep !  Death  stumbles  toward  thee  in  the 
dark!  In  Act  II,  Scene  ii,  the  conversation 
between  husband  and  wife  has  the  seeming 
of  a  monologue  rather  than  a  dialogue,  and 
still  has  movement.  "Macbeth  does  murder 
sleep."  Macbeth  is  always  doing.  In  Scene  i 
of  Act  III,  Macbeth  plans  death  once  more. 
Now  it  is  Banquo.  His  ambition  and  his 
sword  know  not  to  sleep.  In  Scene  iii  of 
Act  V  is  Macbeth's  last  soliloquy.  Doom 
comes  toward  him;  clouds  his  sky,  makes  dark 
his  noon;  yet  is  he  not  changed.  He  is  doer 
still.  To  hold  his  own  amid  outnumbering 
foes,  this  is  his  dream.  He  is  the  soldier 
yet. 

"My  way  of  life 
Is  fallen  into  the  sere,  the  yellow  leaf." 
10 


I46  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

Curses, not  honor, his  portion — but  still  a  king! 
And  scepter  and  sword  will  he  hold  till  death 
shall  wrench  them  from  him. 

"Why  should  I  play  the  Roman  fool  and  die 
On   mine   own   sword?     Whiles    I    see    lives,    the 

gashes 
Do  better  upon  them." 

Such  is  this  soldier  king;  and  when  he  dies, 
't  is  fighting.  He  and  action  are  sworn  friends. 
Certain  it  is,  Macbeth  is  consistent  with  him- 
self in  life  and  death. 

In  Hamlet  are  four  bona  fide  soliloquies. 
These  occur,  one  in  Act  I,  two  in  Act  III,  and 
one  in  Act  IV;  while  besides,  in  Act  II,  Ham- 
let's rejoinder  to  Guildenstern  is  not  so  much 
reply  as  soliloquy.  Soliloquy  is  natural  to 
Hamlet  as  turbulence  to  the  seas.  His  con- 
versations are  monologues.  He  takes  other 
men's  words  as  points  of  departure.  He  deals 
in  dissertations,  not  conversations.  Yet,  how 
singular  and  acute  the  Shakespearean  treat- 
ment! If  Hamlet  fall  into  soliloquy  as  natu- 
rally as  stars  fall  with  flash-light  to  the  earth 
at  night,  yet  is  he  still  more  the  brooder  than 
the  soliloquizer.  His  lips  do  not  often  catch 
his  heart's  words.     He  will  be  quiet.     Mac- 


The  Soliloquies  of  Macbeth  and  Hamlet        147 

beth  has  given  him  over  to  soliloquy  as  fre- 
quently as  Hamlet;  and  here  is  Shakespeare 
right  as  always.  Hamlet's  mood  is  to  think,  to 
dream,  rather  than  speak  in  whispers  even. 
He  will  hide  his  passion.  Not  even  Horatio 
shall  know  his  heart. 

But  play  you  the  eavesdropper.  Hear 
Hamlet  count  his  woes  as  the  nun  her  beads. 
In  Act  I  he  meditates,  though  remotely,  self- 
slaughter.     He  faults  the  world. 

"  'T  is  an  unweeded  garden 
That  grows  to  seed." 

'T  is  "weary,  stale,  flat,  and  unprofitable." 
'T  is  a  dreary  waste,  littered  with  shame  and 
broken  hopes  and  mouthing  fears.  Having 
his  mother  in  his  thought,  he  moans,  "Frailty, 
thy  name  is  woman!"  His  soliloquy  is  a  moan, 
but  has  no  movement.  The  end  finds  him 
no  nearer  suicide  than  the  beginning.  Nay, 
he  is  further  removed.  He  has  forgotten  his 
main  thesis.  But  that  the  world  turns  him  sick 
in  looking  at  it,  we  can  not  argue. 

In  Act  III,  he  still  has  suicide  at  heart,  but 
is  drawing  nearer  to  it.  At  the  first  approach 
he  does  but  lament,  because  the  Almighty  "has 
fixed  his  canon  against  self-slaughter."     Now 


14$  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

the  view  is  positive,  "To  be.  or  not  to  be." 
The  point  of  a  bared  bodkin  gleams  before  his 
thought.  Death  and  he  are  touching  hands. 
But  't  is  thought,  not  action.  The  reasons 
against  outtop  the  reasons  for.  Hamlet  re- 
cedes from  suicide  now  as  before.  But  further, 
in  Act  III,  he  thinks  aloud  in  his  own  hearing. 
Now  he  passes  from  thought  of  self-slaughter 
to  that  of  slaughtering  the  king.  Seeing  Claud- 
ius praying,  breathing  hard  he  whispers. 

"Now  might  I  do  it  pat.  now  he  is  praying." 

But  if  Claudius  be  slain  at  prayer,  then  shall 
he,  by  Hamlet's  logic,  come  to  heaven;  hence 
he  will  not  kill  him  thus. 

"But  when  he  is  drunk  asleep,  or  in  his  rage, 

Then  trip  him  that  his  heels  may  kick  at  heaven, 
And  that  his  soul  may  be  as  damned  and  black 
As  hell,  whereto  it  goes." 

These  conditions  are  not  met;  and  action  is 
as  far  removed  as  when  thought  began.  Not 
yet,  wait — that  is  the  conclusion.  Once  more, 
in  Act  IV,  hear  Hamlet  soliloquize.  He  still 
dreams  of  action.  He  is  haunted  by  the  pur- 
pose to   slay   the   king.     His   thought   cries, 


The  Soliloquies  of  Macbeth  and  Hamlet       149 

Now!  Now!  but  his  hand  holds  back.  There 
is  no  contagion  between  thought  and  sword. 
He  is  brave  as  Achilles.  Cowardice  is  no 
fault  to  be  charged  against  Hamlet.  But 
thought  is  not  action.  He  sees  himself  dere- 
lict. Duty  cries,  Slay  the  king!  All  actions 
do  but  argue  and  augment  the  royal  guilt, 
and  mark  the  royal  criminal  a  target  for  an 
angry  sword;  and  as  Hamlet  goes  from  us, 
hear  him  say, 

"From  this  time  forth 
My  thoughts  be  bloody  or  be  nothing  worth." 

Yet  are  action  and  Hamlet  far  apart  as  are 
the  Pole  Star  and  the  Southern  Cross. 

If  you  will  compare  the  chief  soliloquies  of 
Macbeth  and  Hamlet,  and  bring  the  conclu- 
sion into  small  compass,  you  shall  see  the  men 
as  by  a  flash  of  lightning  in  the  night. 

Macbeth  has  a  dagger  before  him;  Hamlet 
meditates  on  a  bare  bodkin.  Hamlet  means 
the  bodkin  for  his  own  breast;  Macbeth  the 
dagger  for  another's  heart.  "To  be,  or  not  to 
be,"  says  Hamlet;  "To  do,  or  not  to  do,"  says 
Macbeth.  One  thinks,  and  drifts  farther  from 
his  purpose:  O,  that  is  Hamlet!  One  thinks, 
springs  to  his  feet,   grasps   dagger-hilt,   and 


150  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

drives  it  surely  home;  and  this  is  Macbeth. 
Hamlet  will  soliloquize  on  suicide;  Macbeth 
will  not  entertain  the  thought,  though  adver- 
sity drive  broken  sword  against  his  breast. 
Hear  him  upon  the  battle-field  spurn  the 
thought  of  self-murder.  Hear  Hamlet  medi- 
tate on  assassinating  Claudius.  He  pricks  his 
own  slow  purpose.  He  dreams  to  do,  and  does 
not.  Had  life  given  him  a  longer  day,  he  had 
avenged  Hamlet  the  ghost; 

"But  the  native  hue  of  resolution 
Is  sickled  o'er  with  the  pale  cast  of  thought." 

But  Macbeth  the  soldier  is  steeped  in  crime  ere 
his  plans  are  well  matured.  Duncan,  Ban- 
quo,  armed  conspiracies — he  is  against  them 
all.  He  drives  against  them  like  a  charge  of 
cavalry.  He  can  not  sit  and  think;  but  he  can 
do  and  die. 

And  Hamlet  lying  white  and  dead  upon  the 
sands  of  Elsinore;  and  Macbeth  at  Dunsinane 
fighting  as  fiends  fight  or  heroes,  there  slain 
and  borne  a  trophy  to  the  rightful  king — 
Hamlet  and  Macbeth — far  apart  in  life,  are  by 
the  same  sword  brought  to  death.  Thinker 
and  actor  lie  silent  in  one  grave. 


The  Ebb  Tide 

There  is  art  in  naming  a  novel.  Scott 
found  this  his  chief  difficulty;  but  how  admira- 
bly he  succeeded  let  his  titles  attest.  Cooper 
was  ultimately  compelled  to  change  the  cap- 
tion of  his  first  attempt  at  fiction.  Marion 
Crawford  was  so  taken  with  the  name  of  a 
woman  he  met  that  he  wrote  asking  her  con- 
sent to  make  it  the  title  of  his  forthcoming 
novel;  and,  she  consenting,  we  have  "Kath- 
erine  Lauderdale."  That  a  work  may  survive 
a  bad  title  is  no  refutation  of  the  claim  here 
made.  A  sorrier  caption  than  Besant's  "All 
Sorts  and  Conditions  of  Men"  is  hard  to  con- 
ceive; but  the  volume  is  virile  enough  to  sur- 
vive in  spite  of  the  ill  christening.  There  is 
a  euphony  of  name  naturally  appealing  to  the 
mind.  "The  Prisoner  of  Zenda"  is  a  captivat- 
ing title,  as  well  as  a  captivating  book. 
"Geoffrey  Hamlyn"  is  well  named.  "Quentin 
Durward,"  "Ivanhoe,"  "Henry  Esmond," 
"Lorna  Doone,"  "Ben  Hur,"  are  all  well- 
chosen  titles.  But  when  the  theme  of  a  novel 
is  not  a  proper  name,  but  a  phrase,  the  art  be- 

151 


152  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

comes  more  involved.  A  good  title  conceals 
meaning,  excites  interest,  and  when  the  book 
is  done  should  justify  itself  by  its  apposite- 
ness.  "The  Ebb  Tide"  answers  these  de- 
mands. It  gives  no  hint  of  meaning,  makes 
picture  of  the  evening  sea,  rouses  involuntary 
questioning,  and  when  the  story  is  ended  satis- 
fies the  reader  as  being  the  exact  name  for 
such  a  tale.  "The  Ebb  Tide"  is  a  metaphor. 
The  sea  has  no  bearing  on  the  fiction.  Not 
an  ebbing  tide  is  mentioned  in  the  volume. 
The  reference  is  to  life,  and  not  to  seas;  and 
when  reviewed  in  thought  compasses  a  pathos 
of  meaning  deeper  than  the  silences  which 
underlie  the  lapping  tides  of  ocean. 

The  story  is  not  involved.  No  digressions 
or  halts  for  the  introduction  of  new  episodes 
or  new  characters,  as  in  "Martin  Chuzzlewit" 
or  "Middlemarch."  The  tale  keeps  straight 
on  like  a  traveler  in  unhindered  journey.  The 
characters  are  few.  Love  has  no  part  in  the 
passing  pageant.  The  book  is  fiction  in  form; 
but,  more's  the  pity,  is  truth's  story  retold.  We 
are  haunted  by  the  memory,  knowing  it  is  not 
a  dream,  but  a  late  recorded  history  of  many 
unwritten  lives.  We  can  not  put  the  pathos 
from  us.     It  clings  like  shadow  to  the  moun- 


The  Ebb  Tide  153 

tain.  This  work  is  grown  out  of  the  soil  of 
Stevenson's  health-exile  in  Samoa.  Doubt- 
less, on  the  wharves  of  that  far  island  in  the 
South  Seas,  he  had  seen  the  men  whose  biog- 
raphies are  here  written  down. 

The  story  is  this:  "Robert  Herrick  was  the 
son  of  an  intelligent,  active,  and  ambitious 
man,  small  partner  in  a  considerable  London 
house.  Hopes  were  conceived  of  the  boy." 
He  was  sent  to  Oxford,  and  had  taste  and 
talent,  "but  was  deficient  in  consistency  and 
intellectual  manhood."  He  dabbled  in  Greek 
and  music  and  mathematics.  His  fault  was  the 
fault  of  many — lack  of  integrity  of  plan.  The 
father  failing  in  business,  the  son  was  thrown 
on  his  own  resources;  became  a  clerk  and  de- 
spised his  vocation,  feeling  himself  above  it. 
He  was  honest,  courteous,  and  useless.  He 
did  not  drink.  He  had  no  distinctive  vice; 
but  his  "course  was  one  unbroken  shame." 
He  was  worthless  to  his  employers.  Talents 
he  had,  but  application  none.  He  ceases  writ- 
ing home,  and  thus  cuts  himself  off  from  his 
sole  anchorage.  He  can  keep  no  employment 
long;  is  buffeted,  not  by  fortune,  but  by  his 
own  inaction  and  incapacity.  He  leaves  Amer- 
ica, and  sails  to  the  islands  of  the  South  Seas, 


154  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

where  food  requires  scarce  an  effort  in  secur- 
ing, and  where  shelter  and  clothing-  are  neither 
elaborate  nor  costly.  Besides,  there  men  had 
climbed  to  be  "queen's  consorts  and  king's 
ministers."  But  Herrick  changes  his  name, 
which  certifies  his  lack  of  manful  purpose. 
The  biographer  says  wisely,  "The  alias  be- 
trayed his  moral  bankruptcy."  A  place  got 
was  lost;  and  he  fails  to  get  bread.  This  was 
a  habit  now.  He  exhausts  credit,  he  begs; 
repulsed,  he  prefers  starvation  or  digs  his  food 
from  rubbish  heaps,  his  bedroom  a  disused 
prison;  his  companions — one  a  villain,  vain, 
boastful,  vulgar;  the  other,  generous-hearted, 
weak,  drunken,  occupationless,  ambitionless, 
but  still  a  man  whose  hand  it  was  not  a  shame 
to  take.  How  low  is  the  man  of  fine  fiber  and 
fair  parts  fallen!  He  sees  his  estate,  blushes  in 
the  darkness,  revolts,  but  is  quiescent.  Burnt 
with  heat  by  day,  shivering  with  cold  by  night, 
starving,  a  parasite,  threatened  with  arrest  as 
a  vagabond,  feeling  his  shame, — this  is  Her- 
rick. His  failures  incapacitate  him  for  success. 
He  meditates  suicide,  for  his  moral  nature  is  a 
wreck. 

A  ship  flying  a  yellow  flag  at  the  mast  sails 
into  port.    Smallpox  has  slain  a  drunken  cap- 


The  Ebb  Tide  155 

tain  and  mate.  The  seaman  is,  default  of  bet- 
ter material,  made  captain.  Herrick  becomes 
first  mate.  The  captain  purposes  the  theft  of 
cargo  and  vessel.  Herrick  is  indignant,  pro- 
tests, yields;  but  on  the  voyage  as  the  captain 
and  the  clerk — associates  in  poverty  and  shame 
on  the  island  beach — sink  in  drunken  revels 
which  are  continuous,  he  plays  the  man,  pilots 
the  ship,  feels  terrible  disgust,  and  rising  in- 
dignation. By  mismanagement  in  a  squall 
the  captain  all  but  wrecks  the  ship.  Herrick, 
outraged  and  angry,  is  ready  for  death.  The 
ship,  with  victualing  gone,  drifts  into  an  un- 
known port,  held  by  a  white  man  of  command- 
ing person  and  imposing  spirit,  a  strange  char- 
acter, but  a  man  gifted  to  rule,  and  a  pearl 
merchant  with  unknown  wealth  of  pearls  hid 
in  his  safe.  He  is  drawn  to  Herrick,  but  de- 
spises the  two  associates,  and  shows  it.  He 
reads  them  all,  as  if  they  were  open  books 
written  in  a  known  tongue.  He  senses  the 
scholar  in  Herrick,  pities  and  despises  his 
weakness.  Captain  Davis,  and  Huish  the 
clerk,  resent  the  undisguised  contempt  of  the 
island  lord,  and  plan  his  murder,  the  seizing 
of  his  wealth,  the  victualing  their  ship,  and 
the   sailing   home   to   opulence   and   content. 


I56  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

Herrick,  though  weak  and  a  consort  of  thieves, 
is  not  a  villain.  He  knows  not  what  to  do. 
Feeling-  himself  a  criminal,  sharer  in  a  stolen 
ship,  his  moral  stamina  counts  for  little.  De- 
spising his  companions,  he  still  feels  the  tug 
of  association.  Can  he  betray  his  friends? 
He  feels  he  can  not.  Dare  he  see  this  some- 
time host  of  theirs  foully  murdered?  He  dare 
not.  How  can  these  conflicting  claims  be  ad- 
justed? And  a  weak  man  gives  a  weak  man's 
answer — suicide.  He  leaps  into  the  bay,  and 
finding  himself  afraid  to  die,  makes  his  way 
shoreward,  and  sits  dripping  on  the  sand  nau- 
seated with  himself.  He  can  not  even  die.  Hu- 
miliated, shamed,  with  the  spell  of  his  fatal 
indecision  still  on  him,  the  island  magnate 
finds  him,  and  he  becomes  a  dependent  of  this 
strong  man,  letting  another  will  do  what  his 
has  not  done.  Huish  lands,  approaches  the 
man  he  hates,  holds  up  his  hands;  but  in  one 
hides  a  bottle  of  vitriol,  which  he  purposes 
throwing  in  his  enemy's  face,  but  is  detected, 
attempts  to  throw,  and,  as  the  bottle  leaves 
his  hand,  Atwater's  Winchester  shatters  it, 
and  the  vitriol  boils  down  on  his  own  face. 
Another  bullet  ends  the  wretch.     Davis  stands 


The  Ebb  Tide  157 

apart  appalled.  Herrick  sees  the  tragedy ;  and 
the  tale  leaves  him  hopeless,  lost. 

Tragic  enough  this  fiction  is.  Not  a  hint 
of  humor  nor  a  glint  of  sunshine  in  the  book 
from  lid  to  lid.  Somber,  pathetic!  This  is  no 
story  to  read  for  rest  and  pleasure.  No  com- 
edy laughs  on  any  page.  Here  is  succession 
of  shadows.  Shakespeare  will  smile  even  be- 
side the  grave;  not  so  Stevenson. 

This  work  is  a  collaboration.  The  name  of 
Osbourne  shares  the  title-page  with  Steven- 
son. How  large  his  contribution,  we  are  not 
told;  but  I  think  it  clear  the  result  is  more 
satisfactory  than  such  partnerships  usually 
produce.  Literary  partnerships  sin  against 
personality.  We  care  to  feel  a  writer's  heart. 
His  selfhood  ought  to  be  the  background  of 
every  page.  This  sense  of  individuality  an  as- 
sociate authorship  destroys.  But  it  is  safe  to 
say  that  in  "The  Ebb  Tide"  Stevenson  has 
been  the  master-spirit.  His  genius  is  in  the 
plan.  His  rare  English  flashes  like  light  from 
the  pages;  and  to  write  a  critique  of  the  novel 
in  the  name  of  Stevenson's  known  character- 
istics seems  just. 

I  mention  three  characteristics  of  Steven- 


I58  The  Poefs  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

son's  genius.  These  are:  Exquisite  English, 
lack  of  love  as  a  factor  in  his  fictions,  and  the 
somberness  of  his  art. 

The  English  of  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  is 
a  perpetual  delight.  His  style,  at  its  best,  is 
music.  As  a  simple  study  in  language,  "Dr. 
Jekyl  and  Mr.  Hyde"  is  to  me  a  growing  won- 
der. The  "New  Arabian  Nights"  is  a  piece  of 
enchanting  verbiage.  His  felicity  of  speech, 
his  lucidity,  his  spontaneity,  his  naturalness 
and  ease,  conspire  to  make  him  a  prose  poet. 
To  read  his  best  productions  is  a  growing  joy, 
because  new  beauty  reveals  itself  at  every  step. 
I  read  him  as  I  would  sit  in  autumn  and  watch 
a  mountain  stream  go  laughing  in  crystal 
tangles  down  the  hills,  and  standing  in  quiet 
pools  to  mirror  sky  and  cloud.  I  never  tire. 
The  beauty  abides.  Stevenson's  English  is 
that  mountain  stream  a-journey  toward  the 
deep.  Take  this  extract  from  Robert  Her- 
rick's  farewell  letter  to  his  sweetheart:  "Turn 
the  key  in  the  door;  let  no  thought  of  me  re- 
turn; be  done  with  the  poor  ghost  that  pre- 
tended he  was  a  man,  and  stole  your  love." 
Or  this:  "I  have  no  more  to  say;  only  linger 
going  out,  like  an  unwilling  guest." 

Stevenson's   art   makes   little   of   love.      It 


The  Ebb  Tide  I 59 

makes  more  of  Mars  than  Eros.  His  are  nov- 
els of  battle.  The  struggle  element  is  upper- 
most. With  Dickens,  Thackeray,  Hall  Caine, 
Blackmore,  the  love  element  is  nodal.  It  is  not 
so  with  Stevenson.  Either  adventure  or  tragic 
effort  is  the  central  actor.  Run  over  in 
thought  the  novels  of  the  author  under  dis- 
cussion, and  you  will  observe  how  unvaryingly 
true  this  criticism  is.  "The  Ebb  Tide"  is  no 
exception.  A  fascinating  novel,  not  a  story  of 
adventure,  runs  its  course,  and,  save  by  bare 
intimation,  love  has  no  voice,  no  beauty  of 
affection  to  cast  its  spell  over  us.  That  we 
read  a  book  of  this  sort  with  sustained  interest 
is  a  high  tribute  to  the  author.  He  entices  us 
to  study  decadence  of  character.  With  chaste 
verbiage,  with  accurate  delineation,  with  clear 
adhesion  to  the  central  subject,  with  interest 
growing  as  the  pages  multiply, — thus  are  we 
held.  There  is  undoubted  mastery  here.  And 
Stevenson  must  be  ranked  among  the  major 
novelists.  It  is  with  soul  struggles  he  deals, 
though  not  with  manly  conquests. 

His  genius  is  essentially  somber.  Fre- 
quently, to  use  a  term  indigenous  to  his  native 
land,  it  is  "uncanny."  He  will  write  only 
tragedy.    Sunshine,  if  it  play  on  the  pages  of 


160  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

his  creations,  darkens  in  a  moment.  Perhaps 
his  constant  ill-health  may  be  offered  as  ex- 
planatory, at  least  in  part.  I  am  of  opinion 
that  between  Stevenson  and  Edgar  Allan  Poe 
there  is  a  distinct  spirit  of  resemblance.  Poe's 
tales  are  terrible  and  graphic,  realistic  as  De- 
Foe,  tragic  as  the  "Scarlet  Letter,"  mystical 
as  "Kubla  Khan,"  and  lurid  with  genius.  My 
conviction  is  that  more  than  an  apparent  simi- 
larity exists  between  the  tales  of  Poe  and  those 
of  Stevenson.  The  ''New  Arabian  Nights" 
and  "The  Strange  Case  of  Dr.  Jekyl  and  Mr. 
Hyde"  are  definitely  like  Poe  in  their  flavor. 
They  are  extravagant  and  terrible.  Stevenson, 
whether  by  intent  or  not,  is  pessimistic.  "Vir- 
ginibus  Puerisque,"  that  series  of  essays  writ- 
ten in  such  spotless  English,  leaves  a  not  alto- 
gether pleasant  flavor  on  the  lip.  In  this  re- 
gard his  works  do  really  belie  him.  He  was 
true,  tender,  loving.  But  that  impress  rests 
on  all.  His  books  deal  with  evil  in  character. 
Nothing  cheery  or  heroic  emanates  from  them. 
"The  Master  of  Ballantrae,"  perhaps  his  most 
virile  contribution  to  fiction,  is  one  increasing 
gloom.  Tragic  at  its  inception,  it  is  mad  with 
horror  at  its  close.  "Kidnapped"  is  graphic 
as  if  written  with  lightning  on  a  sky  at  night, 


The  Ebb  Tide  161 

but  depressing  as  the  shadow  of  a  grave.  The 
"Misadventures  of  John  Nicholson"  is  a  pro- 
cession of  sufferings  and  mistakes,  with  scarce 
a  memory  of  mellow  light.  "Dr.  Jekyl  and 
Mr.  Hyde"  is  as  gruesome  and  dispiriting  as 
can  well  be  pictured.  It  closes  in  shadows  and 
the  night.  There  is  a  shadow  on  every  land- 
scape. The  ruddy  hues  of  Burns  find  no  an- 
swering glow  in  Stevenson.  His  is  a  genius 
gloomy  as  a  Scotch  glen. 

In  this  regard,  then,  "The  Ebb  Tide"  is 
native  to  the  author.  But  we  are  not  to  infer 
that,  because  gloomy,  he  is  unnatural.  Ste- 
venson is  no  dreamer.  He  is  exact.  Accuracy 
is  characteristic  of  his  creations.  Scott  verified 
his  landscapes  and  battle-grounds  by  a  tour 
of  investigation.  Stevenson  verified  his  por- 
traitures by  observation  keen  as  a  Roman 
stylus.  His  is  no  haphazard  movement.  If 
he  will  give  us  tragedy  and  not  comedy,  know 
that  tragedy  is  an  every-day  commodity. 
Life's  processes  do  not  all  terminate  in  joy. 
Tears  mix  their  wine  for  many  a  lip.  The  case 
of  Jekyl  and  Hyde  is  historical  as  Caesar  Bor- 
gia or  Lorenzo  the  Magnificent.  The  history 
of  evil  sheltered,  is  good  turned  from  the  door 
into  the  stormy  night.     Stevenson  is  logical. 

ii 


162  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

He  lets  sin  work  to  its  own  conclusion.  Hyde 
is  hellish,  but  natural  and  familiar.  The  type 
of  life  our  author  gives  portrait  of  is  not  a 
myth.  Would  it  were.  "The  Master  of  Bal-< 
lantrae"  is  accurate  portraiture.  The  char- 
acteristics therein  mentioned  may  be  traced 
in  many  a  family  history.  The  shameful  when 
written  is  never  palatable.  Sin  is  hideous. 
That  is  what  Jekyl  and  Hyde  means.  That  is 
what  "The  Master  of  Ballantrae"  means. 
That  is  what  the  pirate  captain  in  "Treasure 
Island"  means.  That  is  what  Huish  in  "The 
Ebb  Tide"  means.  This  Scotch  novelist  has  a 
lesson  to  teach  if  we  can  hear.  And  "The 
Ebb  Tide,"  melancholy  as  the  story  is,  is  a 
drama  of  life.  A  weak  man  becomes  worthless 
and  a  parasite  and  a  criminal.  He  was  not 
libertine  nor  drunkard,  murderer  nor  taker  of 
gold;  but  he  became  base  for  all.  What  mean- 
ing is  here?  What  is  the  interpretation  of  this 
handwriting  on  the  wall?  Let  the  author  give 
it  in  his  own  words:  "It  is  not  enough  to  say, 
'I  will  be  base.' "  Weakness  is  badness.  To 
do  wrong,  it  is  not  necessary  to  have  a  plan 
of  wickedness.  Good  is  affirmative.  Not  to 
do  good  is  to  do  evil.  This  man,  with  a  schol- 
ar's love  and  longing;  with  his  tattered  Virgil 


The  Ebb  Tide  163 

giving  him  solace  in  hours  barren  of  joy;  with 
his  memory  of  rare  music,  once  heard,  never 
forgotten;  with  his  instincts  for  the  better,  and 
his  inward  detestation  of  beggary  and  crime, — 
he,  with  memory  of  the  woman  he  loved  fresh, 
unfading;  with  love  of  his  home  and  its  dear 
company  drawing  him  like  a  magnet,  with  eye 
for  beauty  of  beach  and  cloud  and  sweep  of 
sea;  with  the  virtues  speaking  in  his  ears  like 
rare  music, — with  all  of  this,  he  was  fallen. 
Nay,  he  had  even  tried.  Struggle  he  had 
known.  He  was  sinking  as  a  man  in  a  bog,  who 
watches  the  silent  waste  suck  him  down  inch 
by  inch.  There  is  deep  pathos  here.  The  au- 
thor has  given  us  reality,  and  we  supposed  we 
read  fiction.  Lassitude  was  Herrick's  sin. 
One  mighty  wrestle,  one  battle  into  which  he 
had  flung  the  strength  of  his  life,  and  he  had 
been  saved!  And  he  knew  that,  but  would 
not  make  the  struggle.  His  will  became  ener- 
vated. At  the  first  he  could  have  changed  his 
career  with  comparative  ease.  But  he  accus- 
tomed himself  to  defeat,  and  bore  it  meekly. 
He  kissed  the  hand  that  smote  him,  till  at  the 
end  sloth  became  a  habit,  and  incertitude 
sapped  his  vitality.  He  lost  confidence  in  him- 
self, and  hope  for  himself.     Can  you  conceive 


1 64  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

Galiatt  in  "Toilers  of  the  Sea"  a  poltroon  and 
a  beggar?  Why,  Galiatt  defied  sea  and  death. 
He  warred  with  the  inevitable,  and  conquered. 
Heroisms  are  in  reach  of  all.  No  monopolies 
are  tolerated  here.  What  Galiatt  was,  Her- 
rick  might  have  been.  And  he  knew  it!  That 
was  his  passionless  despair.  Seeing  all  gone, 
he  felt  he  might  have  retained  it  as  a  woman 
sees  her  lover  pass  from  her,  knowing  a  word, 
a  cry  in  the  gathering  darkness,  would  bring 
him  back, — but  does  not  utter  it.  "He  might 
have  been!"  That  haunted  him  like  a  voice 
of  love.  He  could  not  be  deaf  to  it.  And 
such  a  man  lying  a  rag  upon  the  shore!  Pity, 
pity!  and  only  himself  to  blame!  If  he  could 
have  flung  defiance,  crying,  "I  could  do  no 
other,  I  was  overborne,"  then  had  he  rested 
as  a  man  made  prisoner  in  battle  outnumbered 
by  foes.  The  sense  of  having  done  our  ut- 
most, upholds  like  an  amazing  strength.  Her- 
rick  knew  better.  He  knew  whose  fault  it 
was  that  he,  an  Oxford  scholar,  was  unknown, 
unloved,  an  outcast  in  a  foreign  land  under  an 
alien  sky,  asked  the  alms  of  bread.  There  lay 
his  pain.  To  know  good,  is  not  of  necessity  to 
do  good;  and  the  tide  receded!     Ebb  Tide! 


The  Ebb  Tide  165 

God's  ocean  tides  come  back  and  wash  the 
shores  again.  But  life's  tide  not  so.  It  slips 
back,  goes  out,  and  power  passes  from  us. 
There  is  menace  in  a  lapping  tide.  A  moment 
more,  the  ebb  begins!  Robert  Herrick  made 
himself  the  thing  he  was.  Meant  for  manhood, 
he  made  himself  fit  only  for  servitude.  Some 
larger  spirit  than  his  must  command.  He 
knew  only  to  obey.  The  passing  of  a  soul, 
this  is  the  drama  we  have  viewed. 

The  two  potent  factors  in  destiny  are  self 
and  God.  This  man  made  use  of  neither. 
Himself  lay  as  an  unused  oar.  And  God?  He 
gives  no  thought  to  him.  What  a  fatal  omis- 
sion! We  have  no  hint  in  all  the  history  that 
he  even  knew  of  God.  Reared  in  a  Christian 
land,  he  must  have  known  God,  but  discloses 
no  belief  in  him  nor  any  recognition  of  him. 
To  all  intents  he  was  atheist.  Himself  but 
weakness,  he  knew  no  larger  strength  than 
his.  He  being  as  he  was,  and  ignoring  the 
Supreme  strength,  what  could  ensue  but  weak- 
ness? Stranded  like  a  ship  touched  by  no 
wave,  with  only  a  memory  of  buoyant  seas 
upon  it — that  was  Robert  Herrick;  and  the 
ebb  tide  would  come  back  no  more! 


1 66  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

Somber  this  book  is  as  a  rainy  autumn  even- 
ing; but  we  have  read  the  tragedy  of  a  wasted 
life,  and  how  could  sunlight  break  in  on  such 
a  scene?  "The  Ebb  Tide"  should  pass  into  the 
curriculum  of  reading  for  every  youth  and 
maid.  A  tale  of  shipwreck,  it  is  as  full  of  warn- 
ing as  the  night  that  broods  above  the  sea  of 
moaning  voices. 


The  Jew  in  Fiction 

The  Jew  is  the  romance  of  history.  Oldest 
of  living  peoples;  with  authentic  kingdom  be- 
fore battle  trumpeted  at  the  gate  of  Troy, 
whose  ten  tribes  passed  into  perpetual  banish- 
ment when  Greece  and  Rome  were  mythic 
names  and  waging  mythic  wars;  with  history 
and  genius,  unprecedented  longevity  and  un- 
paralleled catastrophe,  the  solitary  people  to 
whose  annals  miracles  indubitably  belong,  the 
race  to  which  our  world  owes  its  chief  mono- 
theistic systems — a  race  whose  personality  has 
not  been  impaired  by  vast  attrition,  half  of 
which  reduced  the  Roman  race  to  a  shadowy, 
though  colossal  memory — the  Jew  is  this  day 
sole  survivor  of  the  ancient  world,  and  the  mir- 
acle of  history.  With  the  Jew  this  article  con- 
cerns itself. 

And  what  a  name  to  conjure  with!  From 
Israel  sprung  Abraham  and  David,  Moses  and 
Solomon,  Elijah  and  Isaiah  and  Spinoza,  Saul 
of  Tarsus  and  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  A  plant 
capable  of  bursting  into  such  bloom  must 
have  been  watered  with  dews  from  heaven. 

167 


1 68  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

One  can  not  well  fix  thought  upon  the  He^ 
brew  without  beginning  to  dream.  His  career 
has  been  so  thrilling,  and  his  virility  appears 
so  unimpaired,  as  to  waken  expectations  con- 
cerning his  future.  When  summer  is  past,  and 
winter  winds  begin  to  blow,  we  cherish  no 
hope  of  flowers.  We  know  their  day  is  dead. 
But  the  Jew  seems  not  to  be  on  the  verge  of 
winter,  but  rather  on  the  verge  of  spring.  The 
winds  that  blow  in  his  face,  though  cold,  are 
yet  freighted  with  the  fragrance  of  a  growing 
world.  That  a  race  should  have  survived  the 
wreck  of  thirty  centuries  and  catastrophes  un- 
paralleled in  history,  and  yet  have  no  triumph- 
ant morrow,  seems  more  than  incredible. 

Novelists  are  what  Hamlet  called  players, 
"the  abstract  and  brief  chronicle  of  the  time." 
These  are  historians  of  a  period  whose  art 
makes  the  era  a  perpetual  life.  Of  them,  his- 
torians have  found  it  needful  to  learn.  To 
make  history  live  is  the  art  of  Herodotus, 
Macaulay,  and  Francis  Parkman.  This  the 
novelist  is  an  adept  in  doing.  He  belongs  to 
an  age.  He  glasses  its  life,  as  a  pool  the  flag 
and  willows  along  its  banks.  His  estimate  of 
conditions  will  be  impersonal.  In  his  estimate 
of  social   values,   he  belongs  to  his   age,  as 


The  Jew  in  Fiction  I&9 

waves  to  a  shore.  He  is  not  originative,  but 
reiterative.  And  the  large  place  recent  writers 
of  fiction  (in  prose  or  verse),  have  given  the 
Jew,  is  proof  of  how  large  a  place  in  thought 
he  occupies,  and  the  attention  given  him  and 
his  tragic  history.  Earlier  English  kings  were 
wont  to  pull  the  teeth  of  Jews  for  pastime;  but 
Queen  Victoria  has  knighted  Moses  Monte- 
fiore;  and  her  reign  has  seen  the  first  Jew 
raised  to  the  lord  mayorship  of  London.  If, 
as  we  may  legitimately  do,  we  are  to  judge 
from  the  novelists,  the  day  for  undervaluing 
the  Jew  is  past,  as  is  the  day  of  his  persecu- 
tion. Time  was  when  he  was  hissed,  cursed, 
burned,  broken  on  the  wheel,  banished,  or,  at 
the  kindest,  ignored.  He  has  outlived  con- 
tumely, and  has  projected  himself  into  the 
world's  thought.  Indeed,  the  last  and  hardest 
thing  has  always  been  to  ignore  him;  for,  in 
some  sense,  he  was  central  wherever  he  was. 
even  a  temporary  citizen.  God  has  thrown 
round  him  a  flame,  so  that,  as  the  burning 
bush,  he  is  not  destroyed. 

In  the  British  Museum,  among  its  most 
treasured  holdings,  is  the  Portland  vase,  no- 
blest antique  remaining  of  ancient  ceramic  art. 
Were  it  of  solid  gold,  fetched  in  some  royal. 


17°  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

galleon,  shaped  by  some  artist  of  renown,  and 
carven  with  arabesques,  cunning,  intricate,  in- 
imitable, wonderful,  it  would  not  be  the  pre- 
cious thing  it  is.  You  may  find  it  now  guarded 
jealously  like  king's  jewels.  Above  its  soli- 
tariness as  noblest  survival  of  a  noble  art, 
stands  this  other  fact — the  vase  is  a  recon- 
struction. In  other  years,  a  madman  flung  to 
the  floor  and  shattered  this  bit  of  fashioned 
clay.  To-day,  however,  in  a  smaller  room  de- 
voted to  itself,  as  if  it  were  a  royal  person,  the 
Portland  vase  stands  as  if  no  maniac's  madness 
had  reduced  it  to  fragments.  Put  together 
thus  cunningly,  you  would  not  guess  calamity 
had  reduced  it  to  a  ruin.  And  the  value  of 
this  vase  is  enhanced,  rather  than  subtracted 
from,  by  this  disaster.  Now  the  Portland  vase, 
as  reproduced  from  chaos,  required  the  ce- 
menting all  parts  into  a  whole.  No  tiniest 
chip,  splintered  by  the  fall,  but  finds  place  in 
this  survival  of  classic  pottery.  In  like  man- 
ner we  shall  need  to  reconstruct  the  Jew  as 
a  type  from  all  fragments  accessible.  He  will 
not  be  adequately  pictured  by  any  single  artist. 
He  is  too  many-sided,  and  will  no  more  be 
limned  by  one  romancist  than  woman  will, 
and  for  the  same  reason.     There  are  facets 


The  Jew  in  Fiction  1 7  r 

innumerable.  Who  would  know  woman,  will 
not  find  it  suffice  to  acquaint  himself  with 
Imogen  and  Enid  and  Colombe,  but  must 
meet  Fatima  and  Vivien,  and  Mistress  Quickly- 
enamored  of  Sir  John  Falstaff.  So  he  who 
would  know  the  Jew,  must  see  him  best  and 
worst;  must  meet  him  in  the  Ghetto  as  well 
as  in  the  Rialto;  in  rags  and  as  minister  to 
kings,  the  villain  Anathoth,  and  the  hero  Si- 
monides.  What  this  paper  proposes,  is  a  study 
of  this  intricate  and  fascinating  character  from 
the  following  works:  Browning's  "Holy-cross 
Day,"  "Rabbi  Ben  Ezra,"  and  "Saul;"  Kings- 
ley's  "Hypatia,"  Scott's  "Ivanhoe,"  Lessing's 
"Nathan  the  Wise,"  Wallace's  "Prince  of  In- 
dia" and  "Ben  Hur,"  Sue's  "Wandering  Jew," 
Zangwill's  "Children  of  the  Ghetto,"  Eliot's 
"Daniel  Deronda,"  and  Caine's  "The  Scape- 
goat." You  will  note  that  the  period  of  study 
runs  through  three  centuries,  from  the  writing 
of  "Merchant  of  Venice"  at  the  close  of  the 
sixteenth  century,  to  the  close  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  and  "The  Children  of  the 
Ghetto."  And  the  landscape  on  which  this 
Jew  appears,  extends  from  the  earlier  Christian 
centuries  in  "Hypatia,"  to  the  latest  hour  in 
Zangwill. 


172  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

As  a  scene  sweeps  before  you,  some  impres- 
sion is  inseparable  from  the  whole.  You  name 
it  beautiful  or  dreary  or  sublime.  So  with 
these  fictions.  They  give  a  general  sense.  Di- 
verse the  characters  as  a  desert  from  the  Vale 
of  Tempe,  yet  is  there  a  landscape  still.  The 
Jew  stands  before  you,  the  Orient  flushing  his 
face,  his  thousands  of  years  sitting  lightly  upon 
him,  leaving  no  wrinkle  on  his  brow,  and  you 
feel,  "I  have  met  strength  this  day."  You  are 
sensible  of  having  come  in  contact  with  a 
great  character.  The  mightiest  act  of  a  race 
is  its  test  of  power,  as  the  farthest  flight  of  an 
arrow  is  measure  of  a  bowman's  strength. 
And  we  may  safely  infer,  from  what  pre-emi- 
nence fiction  gives  him,  that  the  Jew  projects 
above  the  horizons  as  mountains  do. 

Browning's  "Holy-cross  Day"  is  vivid  as 
sunset  tints.  This  artist  brush  neither  forgets 
nor  fails.  It  conceives  and  executes  with  ex- 
act fidelity.  This  poem  may  stand  for  a  picture 
of  the  mediaeval  Jew,  wronged,  helpless,  de- 
spised, bending  to  the  storm  as  trees  do,  but 
dogged,  determined,  unchanged  at  heart.  He 
no  more  coalesces  with  his  age  than  oil  and 
water  mix.  He  is  in  it,  but  not  of  it;  and 
seeming  to  yield,  he  is,  in  fact,  as  unyielding 


The  Jew  in  Fiction  173 

as  rocky  coast  to  turbulent  waves.  That  low- 
ering brow,  that  muttered  malediction,  that 
barely  concealed  hatred  of  the  cross  and 
Christ, — this  is  the  Jew.  Hints  of  his  weakness 
and  his  strength  are  here.  We  pity,  but  can 
scarcely  admire.  His  ragged  defiance  juts 
into  the  sea;  for  his  yielding  was  make-believe. 
He  hates,  and  is  hated ;  but  will,  in  some  meas- 
ure, subordinate  principle  to  policy.  He  has 
protean  adjustability.  In  "Filippo  Baldinucci 
on  Burial,"  you  shall  see  a  superior  delineation 
of  that  hatred  toward  the  Jew  which  made  him 
gall  in  hate.  If  hate  were  fierce,  we  can 
scarcely  wonder  or  blame,  since  occasion  was 
so  pregnant  with  enmities. 

Of  <<Jocnanan  Hakkadosh,"  rabbi,  old,  se- 
date, wisdom's  ruddiest  wine,  dying,  ques- 
tioned and  listened  to  by  disciples,  who  hung 
upon  his  words  as  on  strong  cables, — he  is 
pessimist,  worst  of  pessimists  because  old,  and 
because  to  him  life  has  told  its  story  through. 
Love,  battle,  learning,  each  in  its  turn  is  de- 
clared failure;  nor  need  we  wonder  when  we 
note  God  falls  not  in  his  category  of  life  events. 
He,  a  rabbi,  should  above  all  have  made  dying 
mention  of  a  Shepherd  who  had  been  rod  and 
staff  to  comfort  and  defend.     The  sense  of 


174  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

God  at  hand  redeems  us  from  the  shame  of 
despondency  at  life.  But  Rabbi  Ben  Ezra  is 
antidote  to  Jochanan  Hakkadosh.  He  is  a 
soul  poised  and  strong.  We  feel  the  hid 
strength  of  him,  and  we  are  helped.  Rabbi 
Ben  Ezra  is  old,  but  optimist.  He  interprets 
life's  meaning  rightly,  and  is  not  disappointed; 
neither  seeing  death  is  he  afraid.  With  him 
"The  best  is  yet  to  be."    He  will 

"Welcome   each   rebuff 
That  turns  earth's  smoothness  rough, 
Each  sting  that  bids  not  sit  nor  stand,  but  go! 
Be  our  joys  three  parts  pain! 
Strive  and  hold  cheap  the  strain; 
Learn  nor  account  the  pang;  dare,  never  grudge  the 
throe." 

Clearly,  here  is  a  man  who  has  found  this 
world's  meaning.  Earth  is  a  place  to  grow 
manhood;  and  manhood  is  cheap  at  any  price. 
Life  seems  good  to  him. 

"Let  us  not  always  say, 
'Spite  of  this  flesh  to-day 
I  strove,  made  head,  gained  ground  upon  the  whole!' 
As  the  bird  wings  and  sings, 
Let  us  cry,  'All  good  things 
Are  ours,  nor  soul  helps  flesh  more  than  flesh  helps 
soul!' 


The  Jew  in  Fiction  175 

Therefore,  I  summon  age 

To  grant  youth's  heritage, 
Life's  struggle  having  so  far  reached  its  term: 

Thence  shall  I  pass,  approved 

A  man  for  aye  removed 
From   the   developed   brute;  a   God   though   in   the 
germ." 

"Wait  death  nor  be  afraid!" 

For 

"All  that  is  at  all 
Lasts  ever,  past  recall; 
Earth  changes,  but  thy  soul  and  God  stand  sure: 
What  entereJ  into  thee, 
That  was,  is,  and  shall  be: 
Time's  wheel  runs  back  or  stops:  potter  and  clay 
endure. 

So  take  and  use  Thy  work, 

Amend  what  flaws  may  lurk, 
What  strain  o'  the  stuff,  what  warpings  past  the  aim! 

My  times  be  in  Thy  hand! 

Perfect  the  cup  as  planned! 
Let  age  approve  of  youth,  and  death  complete  the 
same!" 

It  is  better  to  drink  from  this  cup  of  Rabbi 
Ben  Ezra  than  to  drink  rare  Falernian.  His 
age  ends  as  age  should,  a  glad  look  backward, 
but  a  gladder  look  forward!  He  is  the  Jewish 
doctor,   grave,   sagacious,   learned,   provident 


I76  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

of  good.  We  seem  listening  to  high-priest 
Aaron  in  a  monologue.  Rabbi  Ben  Ezra  has 
seen  far,  and  rightly.  His  have  been  eagle's 
eyes.  Great  truths  have  swung  their  suns  into 
his  firmament.  In  his  greater  moods,  he  is 
surely  the  son  of  Abraham,  and  leaves  his 
lesser  self  abased,  his  major  self  exalted,  speak- 
ing, eloquent. 

Saul  is  unique  and  noble.  The  waking  of 
a  lethargic  soul  on  contact  with  youth,  vision, 
genius,  faith,  is  the  theme.  David,  in  poem 
and  history,  presents  both  pomp  and  power  of 
Israel's  story.  His  name  pronounced,  wakes 
Israel  from  the  dead.  That  graceful  warrior- 
poet,  untwining  lilies  from  his  harp  and  letting 
music  drip  from  finger-tips,  is  a  sight  we  care 
to  keep  before  our  eyes  forever.  David,  a 
voice  for  souls — has  he  not  been  this  through 
centuries?  He  has  given  penitence  a  voice; 
he  gave  our  aspiration  wings  of  prayer;  he 
gave  to  gratitude  a  song  of  praise.  David  is 
as  romantic  a  figure  as  ever  stepped  upon  the 
stage  of  history — shepherd,  warrior,  musician, 
poet,  statesman,  conqueror,  king.  Myths  meet 
in  him,  so  rare  a  trysting-place  he  seems.  A 
prodigious  reason,  a  fertile  imagination,  a  fail- 
ing but  recovering  virtue,  a  great  heart,  a  gen- 


The  Jew  in  Fiction  177 

«rous  forgiveness,  a  thrilling  eloquence,  a  gen- 
ius for  conquest,  and  an  upleap  of  life  toward 
God  like  spout  of  fountains, — this  is  David. 
And  in  "Saul"  he  dreams.  The  very  spirit  of 
poetry  uses  him  as  he  his  harp.  He  dedicates 
him  to  the  cure  of  Saul.  Man  never  is  so 
great  as  when  he  serves;  and  young  David  is 
lost  in  service.  Conquest  loves  him  now  as 
afterward;  and  Saul  is  roused  into  kingly  life, 
consciousness,  and  action.  The  Jew's  service 
to  all  races  is  herein  set  forth  by  symbol.  All 
souls  are  debtor  to  the  Jew.  His  Elijahs  and 
Isaiahs,  his  Johns  and  Christ,  have  brought 
soul  back  to  itself  again.  The  greater  David, 
Jesus,  has  done  for  all  what  David  did  for 
Saul.  He  hath  brought  us  back  to  life — and 
God! 

Lessing's  "Nathan  the  Wise,"  written  to  in- 
culcate catholicity,  is  noble  and  un-Jewish. 
He  is  figured  as  man  first,  Jew  afterwards; 
while  his  race  is  Jew  first,  man  afterwards. 
Lessing's  fable  of  the  three  rings  is  sophistical. 
An  element  of  truth  truly  is  contained.  Dog- 
matism ought  not  to  number  us  among  its 
votaries.  But  truth  is  still  truth.  All  systems 
are  not  equally  true  nor  worthy  of  reception. 
Truth  is  one.     Character  may  be  catholic  in 

12 


178  The  Poefs  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

treatment,  but  must  be  intolerant  of  error. 
But  in  greatness  of  heart,  Nathan  is  true  to 
Jewry.  Saul  of  Tarsus  is  not  nobler  than 
Nathan  the  Wise. 

Shylock,  in  "Merchant  of  Venice,"  is  no 
caricature.  Browning's  "Holy-cross  Day"' 
presents  the  Jew  in  a  state  of  subordination; 
Shakespeare,  in  Shylock,  presents  the  Jew  with 
power,  and  using  it — the  Jew  as  aggressor. 
No  one  doubts  that  Abraham's  sons  can  hate, 
or  that  they  love  money,  and  are  adepts  in  pro- 
curing it.  Shylock  is  true  Jew.  Command- 
ing in  ability,  full  of  craft  and  finesse,  unfor- 
getting  of  injury,  relentless  in  hate, — that  is 
Shylock.  The  Jew  has  never  lacked  genius. 
By  persecution,  a  race  once  rooted  to  the  soil 
like  Lebanon's  cedars,  has  become  wanderer 
and  exile.  His  occupation  as  portable  mer- 
chantman has  been  thrust  upon  him.  He  must 
have  wealth  transportable  to  new  shores,  else 
penury  would  be  his  portion.  This  is  the  gen- 
esis of  the  Jew  as  clothier,  jeweler,  broker. 
To-day  here,  to-morrow  yonder;  to-day  a  con- 
fidant of  kings  and  cabinets,  to-morrow  har- 
ried from  the  realm  like  noisome  pestilence; 
but  he  has  been  genius  wherever  thrown. 
He     has     not     lacked     sagacity.       In     spite 


The  Jew  in  Fiction  179 

of  shipwrecks  of  fortune  so  multitudinous 
as  to  baffle  enumeration  or  conjecture,  his 
fleets  still  sailed  the  seas.  Shylock  was  penu- 
rious. He  and  gold  were  lovers.  But  the  no- 
bler of  ignoble  vices  masters  him.  Hate  con- 
quers miserliness.  This  man  who  has  ridiculed 
and  despised  him  is  now  in  his  power,  and  no 
man  shall  save  him.  Yellow  ducats  shall  not 
dull  the  edge  of  hate.  Shout  in  his  ears,  "Take 
four  times  the  bond's  face,"  and  he  will  not 
hear  you  for  exulting  in  his  knife,  hungry  for 
blood.  He  is  a  Jew,  and  hates  the  Christian 
dog.  Race,  bigotry,  misuse,  all  appeal  to  him, 
and  not  in  vain.  "Vengeance!  Vengeance!" 
Shylock,  though  a  Jew  at  a  disadvantage,  is 
still  Jew  in  lineament,  vernacular,  trait,  con- 
duct. 

Isaac,  in  "Ivanhoe,"  is  one  face  of  Shylock; 
he  loves  his  daughter  and  his  gold.  The  rack 
shall  not  wring  from  him  the  hiding-place  of 
his  wealth.  He  protests,  makes  appeal  to 
Abraham's  God  to  attest  his  poverty,  declares 
he  has  been  robbed  of  all  his  gold  by  insa- 
tiable John,  a  story  not  at  all  incredible;  but 
Rebecca  is  above  gold.  What  no  rack  can 
torture  from  him,  fear  for  his  Rebecca  ex- 
tracts  with   swift   immediacy.      Isaac   is   not 


180  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

admirable,  but  is  yet  not  devoid  of  attractions. 
His  cringing  speech  we  can  ill  tolerate;  but 
the  love  of  his  widowed  heart  for  his  Rebecca 
is  beautiful.    The  Jew  is  much  a  lover.    Jacob 
serving  for  Rachel,  and  accounting  his  seven 
years  brief  as  a  winter's  day  for  the  love  he 
bore  her,  is  an  idyl  perennially  beautiful  as 
half-blown  roses.     Whoever  studies  the  Jew 
in  history  or  in  flesh,  must  be  touched  by  his 
affection.     Fidelity  is  an  attribute  of  his  char- 
acter.   Rebecca,  sad,  tearless,  fair,  sad  with  the 
pathos  of  unrequited  love,  is  not  fiction.    She 
is  true  Jewess.    Womanhood  goes  far  to  find 
truer  interpretation  of  womanliness  than  the 
Jewess  gives.     Home  instinct,  which  is  heart 
instinct,    is   an    Israelitish   virtue.      Only   the 
Anglo-Saxon  has  approximated  them  in  this. 
Not  Roman  nor  Greek  knew  like  fidelity.    For 
centuries  of  ancient  time  the  Jew  had  the  sole 
home  among  the  races;  and  considering  how 
absolutely    essential    experience    has    demon- 
strated the  home  to  be  to  civilization,  the  Jew's 
major  part  in  its  establishment  should  never 
be  forgotten.    Isaac  was  father  and  mother  to 
Rebecca,  as  Simonides  to  Esther;  and  he  loved 
her  above  his  gold.    She  was  his  chief  joy,  and 
in  her  was  a  purity,  a  quiet  self-poise,  a  hid 


The  Jew  in  Fiction  1 8 1 

might  of  love,  a  capacity  for  suffering  and  for 
secret-keeping  which  glorify  all  womanhood, 
and  are  innate  in  Jewish  character. 

To  "Hypatia"  we  are  indebted  for  two 
graphic  delineations — mother  and  son,  Miriam 
and  Raphael  Aben-Ezra.  Miriam  is  a  woman 
in  whom  all  womanliness  is  dead  save  mother- 
love,  and  minds  us  of  Fantine  in  "Les  Miser- 
ables."  She  is  apostate  to  her  faith,  fallen, 
vile,  procuress,  an  adept  in  craft,  has  a  Midas 
touch  which  turns  all  she  touches  into  gold, 
is  one  ubiquitous  incognito,  holds  the  secrets 
of  lives  and  cabinets,  seems  aimless  as  a  dis- 
mantled ship;  though,  in  fact,  led  of  one  con- 
suming passion, — she  loves  her  son,  who 
knows  not  he  has  a  mother.  She  watches  him 
as  guardian  angels  do.  She  fills  his  hands  with 
wealth,  as  if  he  were  son  of  a  Caesar.  She 
withholds  nought  save  only  knowledge  of  her- 
self. At  last  she  dies  for  him;  and  in  that  death 
with  the  white  face  of  her  and  the  great  love 
of  her,  fallen,  but  a  woman  yet  with  heart 
deeper  than  deep  seas,  these  seem  half  expi- 
ation of  her  guilt.  Nor  is  she  all  un-Jewish. 
That  Jews  have  become  apostate  and  conjurer 
is  an  oft-told  story.  Baseness  is  a  possible 
application  of  might.    Miriam  was  great  in  her 


1 82  The  Poefs  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

fall.  Raphael,  as  first  seen,  is  fop,  gambler, 
spendthrift:  or  so  he  seems.  He  impresses  us 
as  being  weak  as  rushes  swinging  beside  sum- 
mer streams,  toys  of  every  wind.  But  his  is 
assumed  frivolity.  He  wears  it  as  a  mask. 
He  is  no  fiction.  History  has  produced  char- 
acters not  a  few  who  disguised  depth  under 
apparent  superficiality.  Raphael's  mind  has 
compass,  and  he  is  possessed  of  both  brain 
and  worth,  and  was  not  the  shallow,  babbling 
stream  we  thought  him.  Heroisms,  mastery  of 
philosophies,  acceptance  of  the  Christ,  were 
latent  in  him.  And  he  adds  one  more  to  the 
list  of  Jewish  strength  in  fiction,  and  one  more 
to  the  roll  of  those  whose  awakening  to  the 
better  gives  life  renewed  hope. 

Zangwill,  in  "The  Children  of  the  Ghetto," 
concerns  himself  mainly  with  the  lower  strata 
of  Jewry;  and  Jewry,  like  humanity,  has  its 
lower  as  its  upper.  There  is  no  reason  to 
doubt  the  veracity  of  this  novel.  The  symp- 
toms are  certainly  Jewish.  The  peripatetic 
poverty;  the  man  with  a  memory  of  love  and 
joy,  but  no  present  manhood  or  power  appar- 
ent of  making  a  home  for  homeless  children; 
his  son,  sprung  out  of  this  shiftlessness,  rising 
to  the  point  of  being  scholar  and  more,  when 


The  Jew  in  Fiction  1 83 

death  called  him  and  he  went;  his  daughter, 
gifted  with  grace  of  fancy  and  facility  of  pen, 
ring  ostracism  stoically  as  no  old  Greek 
knew  to  do,  revealing  the  secret  of  the  real 
Jew's  condition,  finding  at  last,  as  a  tossed  ship 
after  wild  storms,  a  haven  of  perpetual  love, — 
this  we  are  told  in  realistic  fashion  as  we  are 
shown  the  ordinary,  unengaging  life  of  a 
Ghetto,  whether  at  London  or  at  Rome.  The 
fish  smells  and  shrewd  bargaining,  the  quaint 
customs  and  love-makings,  the  petty  horizons 
for  the  many  lives,  the  cheer  and  gladness  in- 
separable from  life,  the  exact  ritualism  not  less- 
ened since  Pharisee  of  old  made  broad  his 
phylactery,  and  lengthened  prayers,  and  ob- 
served jots  and  tittles  of  ceremonial  law  or 
meaningless  formularies, — all  this  is  set  down 
with  minute  fidelity  and  graphic  portrayal. 
The  rabbi  who  could  watch  with  unchanged 
face  the  breaking  of  his  daughter's  heart,  but 
would  adhere  to  immemorial  forms  at  so  great 
a  hazard,  aspiration  refusing  to  die,  but  finding 
in  Jewry  no  sufficient  goal, — these  seem  the  log- 
ical and  coherent  utterances  of  one  who  knew. 
This  nether  world  is  a  Jew's  world  still,  for 
poverty  does  not  expatriate.  Fraternity  knits 
Hebrews  together  with  thread?  of  steel.    They 


1 84  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

keep  a  solid  front  to  the  world.  The  "Children 
of  the  Ghetto"  gives  views  not  afforded  by  any- 
other  fiction;  and  what  we  care  to  know  is 
truth,  the  entire  truth.  Who  paints  a  portrait 
studies  all  moods  of  the  subject.  This  complex 
character  the  Jew  will  compel  many  sittings. 
and  many  attitudes,  since  he  is  so  composite- 
Valleys  are  as  natural  to  the  world  as  moun- 
tains. All  topographical  features  have  their 
place.  Deserts  are  real  as  fertile  fields;  and 
the  Ghetto  is  real  as  Rothschild's  princeliness. 
Filth,  while  no  anticipation  of  the  Mosaic  code 
for  this  chosen  people  since  Leviticus  presents 
a  perfect  hygienic  system — filth  is  yet  a  fact  of 
Jewish  memorabilia.  All  civilization  has 
ghettoes,  as  has  the  Jew.  Humanity  must 
bear  the  imputation  of  being  unclean  in  body, 
as  in  spirit.  And  in  this  Jew's  Ghetto  are  hints 
of  comedy  and  bits  of  tragedy,  and  boisterous 
merrymaking  native  to  all  estates.  Poverty 
is  no  dethronement  of  delight.  Heroisms,  too, 
are  here.  Souls  are  the  tenting-grounds  of 
the  heroic.  No  life  is  cut  off  from  the  possi- 
bility of  nobleness;  and  the  revelation  of  an 
old  father,  conscious  that  his  presence  jeopards 
his  son's  happiness;  who  feigns  a  brother  in 


The  Jew  in  Fiction  185 

far-off  America,  who  has  sent  for  him  to  share 
his  wealth,  and  so  leaves  this  Ghetto,  though  to 
leave  is  like  tearing  out  his  living  heart,  and 
turns  gray  face  toward  an  unknown  land, — 
such  sacrifice  renews  the  courage  of  us  all. 
Beyond  dispute  we  are  debtors  to  this  guide, 
who  has  led  us  along  so  untrod,  novel,  and  fas- 
cinating a  path. 

In  Sue's  "Wandering  Jew"  and  Wallace's 
"Prince  of  India"  the  fact  pertinent  to  this  dis- 
cussion is  the  longevity  of  the  Jew — a  per- 
petual wonder,  whose  coming  brings  a  curse! 
For  in  this  wanderer's  shadow  epidemics  settle 
like  baleful  dew.  He  curses  all  he  loves.  Not 
health,  but  disease,  is  his  contribution  to  his 
world.  He  can  not  die.  No  one  can  gainsay 
this  to  be  a  truth  of  Jewish  history.  In  the 
"Prince  of  India"  the  immortal  Jew  is  malig- 
nant; in  "The  Wandering  Jew"  he  is  benefi- 
cent. The  Jew  is  both.  Far-reaching  in  plans, 
power  of  accomplishment,  perpetual  wander- 
ing as  if  our  earth  were  one  unbroken  Sinai 
wilderness,  a  life-long  hunger  at  the  heart,  an 
inability  to  die, — are  these  not  accurate  as  if 
they  were  history  rather  than  fiction? 

The  "Scape-goat"  gives  Israel  Ben  Olliel,. 


1 86  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

than  whom  no  more  pathetic  portrait  of  the 
Jew  has  been  painted.  He  repeats  his  race  in 
intellect,  in  a  strong  and  unflinching  sense  of 
God,  in  ability  to  live  within  himself,  in  love 
for  wife  and  daughter,  in  mastery  of  men,  in 
invincibility  of  spirit  when  once  his  conscience 
is  let  lead,  in  his  dignity  which  defies  humili- 
ation. Israel  Ben  Olliel  compels  your  vener- 
ation, admiration,  love;  and  you  can  readily 
believe  of  him  his  biographer's  statement  that 
his  was  the  noblest  head  he  had  seen  set  on 
man's  shoulders.  He  was  a  son  of  David,  born 
to  rule.  Even  a  cruel  and  vicious  ruler  became 
palatable  in  part  when  his  counsels  were  di- 
rected by  this  astute  minister.  He  knew  to 
suffer;  his  loneliness  is  pitiful.  His  wife  drifts 
from  him  like  some  boat  borne  away  by  the 
•current  of  a  stream.  His  little  daughter,  blind, 
deaf,  dumb,  breaking  by  littles  through  all 
these  barriers  to  a  command  of  every  faculty; 
the  biting  hatred  of  the  synagogue  heaping 
contumely  upon  him,  a  whole  people  cursing 
a  man  who  was  in  truth  their  best  friend;  dis- 
grace at  his  master's  hands  when  he  became 
non-compliant;  bereft  of  power,  nothing  shel- 
ters him  from  mob  violence  and  prison  seques- 


The  Jew  in  Fiction  I S  7 

tration ;  but  in  every  place  looking  the  what  he 
was,  a  mighty  spirit  habituated  to  self-control 
so  complete  as  to  let  no  perturbation  fling 
shadow  across  his  face,  his  ability  to  inspire 
fidelity  and  love  in  those  who  knew  him  best, 
so  that  brave  "Ali  died  with  his  name  upon 
his  lips,  and  with  a  dauntless  shout  of  tri- 
umph," his  love  of  Naomi  the  beloved,  in 
whom  after  God  his  life  was  set  as  in  a  gar- 
den,— this  is  Israel  Ben  Olliel;  and  both  man 
and  face  may  well  arrest  us.  "It  is  a  big, 
strong  face  with  a  snow-white  beard.  His 
hair,  too,  is  long  and  white.  A  Jovian  head, 
and  a  face  with  some  of  the  grander  lines  of 
the  ancient  and  heroic  race  of  Israel."  He  is 
sitting  in  squalor  at  his  poor  mud-hut  door, 
bare  of  foot  and  head,  with  worn  garment, 
wandering  eyes,  bearded  chin  bowed  on  his 
clenched  hands,  as  if  snow  had  slipped  from 
the  tent  roof  and  had  half  hid  them,  so  white 
and  ample  his  beard,  and  talking  to  himself 
in  the  English  tongue;  "and  he  was  mumbling 
terms  of  endearment,  coupled  sometimes  with 
a  name;"  for  he  was  daughterless.  She  has 
been  seized  by  his  sometime  prince  as  an  ad- 
dition to  his  seraglio.     So  love  lives  on  when 


1 88  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

mind  lies  dead.  And  now  dying,  Naomi  hold- 
ing his  dear  head  upon  her  breast,  singing  to 
him, 

"Love,  great  love, 
O  come  and  claim  thine  own, 
O  come  and  take  thy  throne, 
Reign  ever  and  alone, 
Reign,  glorious,  golden  love," — 

while  Israel  Ben  Olliel  makes  shift  to  beat  time 
for  her  singing,  looking  love,  love  only,  life's 
day  forgotten — it  is  evening  now — whispering, 
"Never  was  she  so  dear  to  me  as  now.  Re- 
member, remember!"  "Listen!  When  I  am 
there,  eh? — you  know  there — I  will  want  to  say, 
Father,  you  did  well  to  hear  my  prayer.  My 
little  daughter — she  is  happy,"  and  murmuring 
with  last  articulate  word,  "God — is — great," 
and  taking  hand  of  lover  and  bringing  it  to  his 
breast,  where  lay  Naomi's  hand  "beneath  his 
own  trembling  one,"  and  "with  that  last  effort, 
and  a  look  into  Naomi's  face  that  must  have 
pursued  him  home,  his  grand  eyes  closed  for- 
ever." Him  lying  white  and  still  there,  say 
with  the  Mahdi,  "He  has  gone  to  the  King!" 
One  is  not  often  moved  as  by  that  gray  face 
and  noble  head. 

"Daniel  Deronda"  is  a  study  of  the  Jew 


The  Jew  in  Fiction  189 

from  unexpected  quarters.  George  Eliot  was 
agnostic.  To  her,  "the  oracles  of  God"  were 
mythic  voices.  God  in  history,  Gentile  or 
Jewish,  was  never  more  than  suspected;  could 
never  be  assured,  since  God  was  a  question- 
mark.  The  Jew  comes  to  be  of  absorbing  in- 
terest only  in  the  light  of  his  theistic  history. 
Hebrews,  descendants  of  Abraham,  are  of  in- 
terest; Hebrews,  the  chosen  of  God,  whose 
Tiistory  is  punctuated  with  miracle,  are  of  ab- 
sorbing interest.  George  Eliot,  entertaining 
nugatory  theories  of  Hebrew  history,  was  yet, 
■as  a  woman  of  imagination  and  heart,  caught 
in  the  meshes  of  this  stranger  romance  than 
Sindbad  had  ever  attempted  telling.  She  was 
probably  more  impressed  by  the  miraculous 
than  herself  knew.  In  any  case,  she  has  given 
us  a  latter-day  study  of  a  Jew,  thrilled  with 
enthusiasm  for  Hebrew  history  and  the  mor- 
row of  his  race;  and  Mordecai  is  a  character 
who  might  have  stood  in  his  ranks  in  the 
schools  of  the  prophets.  Every  Jew's  char- 
acter in  "Daniel  Deronda"  is  individual,  and 
logical  in  conception,  and  apt  to  its  purpose. 
Deronda's  mother  is  typical,  and  more  than 
possible.  She  was  restless  under  the  Jewish 
ban,  was  defective  in  imagination  as  in  devo- 


19°  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

tion  in  love.  Hebrew  past  held  no  glory  to 
light  the  present.  She  repudiated  her  race, 
and  all  but  repudiated  her  son.  No  question 
the  countess  has  sisters  among  her  people. 
The  Jew  sits  solitary  and  apart,  as  he  were  an 
oblation  to  the  gods.  This  she  could  not 
brook.  No  doubt  but  that  in  this  isolation  is 
something  drastic  to  many  women.  If  we  may 
interpret  the  utterances  of  the  recent  Conven- 
tion of  Jewesses,  they  and  the  countess  are  of 
one  mind.  They  resist  restriction  to  race  mar- 
riages. They  feel  hindered  as  birds  meant  for 
woods,  but  shut  in  cages.  Love  brooks  no 
hindrances,  but  cares  to  walk  free  as  the  moon 
across  the  world.  Deronda's  mother  repre- 
sents a  recalcitrancy  in  the  Jewish  heart,  this 
is  clear.  How  widely  spread  this  feeling,  is 
not  pertinent  to  the  discussion.  That  it  ex- 
ists, is  justification  for  our  author's  character. 
But  we  can  not  be  pleased  with  this  countess. 
She  has  practically  deserted  her  son,  who 
through  years  supposed  himself  dishonored  in 
his  birth.  Deronda's  meeting  with  his  mother 
was  frigid,  and  entirely  lacking  in  that  plethora 
of  maternal  tenderness  characterizing  the 
Jewess.  In  any  race,  however,  are  abnormali- 
ties.   Woman  is  meant  for  and  attains  ideality, 


The  Jew  in  Fiction  19  r 

but,  falling,  falls  so  low  that  none  but  Christ 
would  attempt  her  restoration.  The  Cohens 
are  well  portrayed.  He  is  the  vender,  the  cun- 
ning, busy  money-getter,  and  lover  of  store- 
shelves  and  little  Jacob  and  his  devoted  ad- 
mirer. I  have  been  on  shipboard  with  such 
Jewish  families  as  the  Cohens;  and  the  sight 
of  them  did  one  good,  that  lingers  in  memory  a 
blessing  still.  Cohen  is  real,  more  real  than 
Mordecai,  because  the  matter-of-fact  man  is 
the  multitudinous  man.  He  fills  each  census 
table  full;  but  the  common  man  is  man,  tender, 
heroic  on  occasion,  bearing  marks  of  being 
God's  son.  Cohen  is  true  to  his  race,  true  to 
every  race. 

Then  the  Anathoths,  father,  son,  daughter. 
Mirah  is  least  racial  of  the  three.  Man,  as 
lover,  loses  his  race  qualities.  Love  obliterates 
race  distinctions,  and  has  one  attitude  and  one 
speech.  Jessica  and  Mirah  and  Ophelia  alike 
repeat  in  whispers  to  their  own  hearts  in  dark- 
ness, "I  love  him,  I  love  him."  Love  flings 
us  out  of  the  tribal  into  the  universal.  The 
larger  instincts  of  soul  are  world  instincts. 
At  every  step  we  transcend  both  place  and 
clan.  The  father  is  baseness,  naming  himself 
a  Jew.     Not  often  have  we  looked  on  so  de- 


I92  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

graded  a  man,  nor  one  so  lost  to  virtue.  The 
father  of  Robert  Falconer,  as  drawn  by  Mac- 
Donald,  is  not  so  fallen  as  this  man.  Anathoth 
has  deserted  his  children,  leaving  them  to  die 
or  survive  as  they  might;  but  when  once  they 
come  to  positions  where  he  may  spoil  them, 
he  appears.  He  is  a  leech.  His  food  is  blood, 
nor  is  he  choice  whose  blood  it  is.  He  will 
not  be  sybarite,  only  give  him  blood.  He  is 
cringing  as  Uriah  Heep,  and  finds  son  and 
daughter,  but  to  disgrace  them  as  a  common 
thief.  Yet  he  shames  not  them  so  much  as 
us.  All  men  are  shamed  in  one  man's  sin.  It 
reflects  evil  hues  on  every  face.  To  fall  so  low 
as  to  lose  sense  of  shame,  to  see  a  face  flushed 
with  love  as  Mirah's  is,  and  not  enter  into  com- 
pact for  her  happiness,  to  see  Mordecai  and 
signs  of  dissolution  on  him,  to  know  a  fire 
burns  this  husk  to  a  last  flaring  flame,  to  be 
sure  you  look  a  modern  prophet  in  the  face, 
and  not  awake  to  manhood, — is  too  pitiful  for 
words.  Yet  with  such  a  sire,  woman  could  be 
pure  of  heart,  and  man  could  dwell  in  a  celes- 
tial sphere  wrapt  round  with  clouds  of  purple 
and  of  gold.  Mordecai  was  son  of  such  a  sire. 
He  is  drawn  a  prophet  and  a  poet.  He  was 
a  flame  leaping  toward   heaven.     As   Hegel 


The  Jew  in  Fiction  193 

was  absorbed  in  his  philosophy,  Mordecai  was 
absorbed  in  his  prophetic  dreams.  Deronda's 
mother  thought  to  be  Hebrew  a  calamity; 
Mordecai  thought  it  to  be  the  sum  of  bless- 
ings. Israel  was  God's  chosen  among  all 
races,  the  Benjamin  whom  God  held  exceed- 
ing dear.  Mordecai  was  enthusiast,  was  pos- 
sessed by  noble  dreams.  Such  as  he  Isaiah 
was:  That  flushed  face  of  genius;  those  eyes 
which  see  through  darkness  as  through  light; 
the  voice  in  which  are  cadences  of  exquisite 
music;  that  hand,  whose  touch,  as  Kingslake 
in  "Eothen"  says,  "Crept  like  a  whisper  up  the 
listening  palm;"  that  sincere,  clean,  rapt  soul, 
which  in  the  world  dwelt  in  forgotten  zones 
of  thought  and  inspiration.  Mordecai  is  the 
Jew  as  dreamer.  He  might  have  been  mu- 
sician, painter,  orator,  poet.  Who  could  put 
Mordecai  on  canvas,  could  paint  Ezekiel  when 
beside  the  river  Chebar  he  "saw  visions  of 
God." 

But  Daniel  Deronda  is  the  Jew  as  modern 
gentleman,  and  is  altogether  admirable.  No 
blemish  scars  his  character.  Even  wdien  he 
sets  sail  upon  a  fatuous  voyage,  we  can  not 
wish  him  other  than  he  was.  Innumerable 
things  are  worse  than  being  Don  Quixote;  for 

13 


194  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

he  was  an  idealist  and  a  gentleman.  Scholar, 
man  of  leisure,  modest,  pure  as  air  that  haunts 
high  mountains,  strong  enough  to  have 
strength  to  be  a  strength  to  Gwendolyn  Har- 
leth  and  a  fulfillment  to  Mordecai,  imaginative 
enough  to  dream,  the  Orient  flushing  his 
cheek,  the  Occident  girding  his  purpose, 
steady  in  movement,  reserve  of  power  his  pos- 
session, Deronda  moves  like  a  brave  ship 
which  walks  billows  as  if  they  were  a  meadow- 
land.  He  is  Jew  of  the  highest  type;  but  his 
ancestry  is  unknown.  George  Eliot  has  evi- 
denced superior  art  in  disclosing  hidden  move- 
ments of  spirit,  which  become  explicable  only 
when  race  ancestry  is  discovered.  This  Jew- 
ish ancestry  has  not  more  flushed  his  cheek 
than  it  has  colored  his  mentality  and  char- 
acter. Radiant  eastern  nights  seem  flooding 
his  soul  with  spendthrift  glory.  Finding  who 
he  is,  he  understands  himself.  Mordecai 
wakes  him  as  if  Deronda  were  instrument  and 
Mordecai  musician.  This  Jew,  a  great  past 
seizes,  and  holds  him  prisoner;  and  then  he 
dreams  that  yesterdays  imply  to-morrows. 
Capable  of  enthusiasm  as  large  life  must  be, 
Daniel  Deronda  is  a  praise  to  the  race  whose 
product  he  is  assumed  to  be. 


The  Jew  in  Fiction  195 

And  "Ben  Hur," — with  him  ends  this  pro- 
cession of  fiction.  Princess  Hur,  Tirzah,  Es- 
ther, Simonides,  Ben  Hur, — surely  we  have 
watched  a  royal  procession  pass!  Israel  is  in 
the  book, — Israel's  pomp,  disaster,  fidelity  in 
love,  wealth  of  tenderness,  brilliancy  of 
achievement,  unbreakable  will,  race  instinct, 
the  ruddy  life  outliving  tragedy  expectant  for 
another  day,  defeated,  triumphant;  such  is  Ben 
Hur,  such  is  Israel. 

Esther  is  sweet  daughter,  worthy  her  tender 
and  heroic  sire, — strong,  delicate  in  love  as 
woman  in  her  finer  moments  is,  she  breaks  on 
the  spirit  as  moonrise;  Tirzah,  sister  to  Ben 
Hur,  prisoner,  leprous,  forgotten,  discovered, 
healed  of  Christ;  Princess  Hur,  pitiful  in  her 
woes,  but  upborne  by  faith  in  God.  "By  the 
rivers  of  Babylon  we  sat  down  and  wept,  yea, 
we  wept  when  we  remembered  Zion;"  but  she 
a  prisoner  on  Zion's  hill,  and  saw  no  sunrise 
smite  the  golden  roof  of  Jehovah's  temple! 
This  tragedy  of  imprisonment  is  typical  tyr- 
anny, relentless,  terrible.  A  leper,  yet  drink- 
ing at  the  deep  fountains  of  love,  she  dreams  of 
Ben  Hur,  hopes  for  him,  prays  God  for  him. 
Her  hope  lives  on.  Ben  Hur  runs  like  a  living 
stream  through  the  parched  desert  of  her  life. 


I96  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

With  woman's  wondrous  decentralization  of 
soul,  she  slurs  her  own  wrong  and  suffering 
over  thinking  of  Tirzah,  more  of  Ben  Hur. 
She  saw  him  last  lost  in  the  procession  mov- 
ing toward  the  galleys.  Hear  her  cry,  "Ben 
Hur!  Ben  Hur!  Ben  Hur!"  And  love  has  al- 
ways one  recourse,  love.  She  was  not  all  be- 
reft. Tirzah  and  her  love  and  God  did  keep 
her  company.  Not  often  has  any  writer  given 
so  pathetic  a  picture  as  that  of  Tirzah  and  the 
Princess  Hur  stealing  like  shadows  of  the  night 
down  from  En  Rogel's  well  to  look  by  night 
upon  the  home  of  their  remembered  joy.  And 
Ben  Hur  lies  sleeping  on  the  step  of  Prince 
Hur's  palace,  across  whose  wide  doors  even 
eyes  dimmed  with  leprosy  can  read  written, 
"This  is  the  property  of  the  emperor."  Ben 
Hur  turns  him  restless  in  his  dreams,  and 
moans,  "Mother."  And  Princess  Hur  sees  him 
for  whom  all  these  dead  years  she  has  longed 
as  dying  lips  for  the  dear  kiss  of  love.  Tirzah 
sees  his  hand  lying  palm  upward,  and  will  pour 
kisses  in  its  hollow  like  rain  into  a  rock;  but 
the  mother  withholds  with  strident  leprous 
whisper,  "Not  for  thy  life,  Leper!"  She  falls 
in  the  dust.  A  step,  a  word,  a  touch,  a  caress, 
a  kiss,  which  had  meant  heaven ;  but  she  whis- 


The  Jew  in  Fiction  197 

pers  with  her  hoarse  sibilant  of  leper's  speech, 
"Unclean,  unclean!"  And  this  sweet,  self- 
denying  life  creeps,  only  to  press  parched  lips 
to  his  dusty  sandal  sole — and  creeps  back,  a 
shadow  among"  shadows.  How  high  love  soars 
what  time  her  wings  are  spread!  But  in  Am- 
rah  with  her  deep  fidelity,  in  Esther,  the  prin- 
cess, and  Tirzah,  aside  from  their  persistency 
and  beauty  of  love,  Jewry  finds  no  articulate 
speech. 

Simonides  and  Ben  Hur  are  the  Jewish 
spirits.  Simonides  is  majestic.  All  we  learn  of 
him — and  we  know  him  from  a  lad — is  to  his 
praise.  He  knew  how  to  love  with  a  great  and 
tender  passion,  such  as  moved  Jacob  to  serve  a 
slave  for  Rachel.  For  love  he  became  a  slave 
forever.  That  was  love!  His  paternal  affec- 
tion was  sweet  as  odors  of  lilacs.  He  might 
have  ruled  a  Roman  empire.  His  was  a  faith- 
fulness which  knew  no  sleeping  nor  abatement 
of  toil  through  many  years,  when  hope  of  his 
master's  return  must  have  died  on  many  days 
like  crimson  from  evening  clouds — his  glad 
surrender  of  the  colossal  fortune  which  his 
genius  for  trade  had  amassed,  and  with  it  list- 
ing himself  and  Tirzah  as  chattels  of  Prince 
Hur!  Cupidity  slinks  away  ashamed  in  Simon- 


198  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

ides'   presence.      Look   at   him — his   princely 
brow,  his  commanding-  intellect,  his  vast  mas- 
tery of  the  currents  of  trade,  his  riches  exceed- 
ing those  of  the  Caesars  even.  We  thought  this 
fiction?    'T  is  history  rather.    It  is  from  Roth- 
schild kings  must  borrow  in  their  hour  of  need. 
In  Nathan  the  Wise,  Israel  Ben  Olliel,  and 
Simonides,  find  Jewish  captivity,  character,  and 
genius.     But  consider  Simonides'  moral  fiber 
beyond  what  we  have  already  seen.     He  is 
wheeled  to  and  fro — you  notice  that.     Some 
wreck  has  crushed  him.    Nay,  that  wreck  was 
Gratus,  who,  having  confiscated  Prince  Hur's 
palace    and    estate,    hearing    Simonides    was 
Prince  Hur's  steward,  broke  him  on  the  rack 
to  make  him  disclose  the  hiding-place  of  his 
gold.    The  rack  creaked,  Simonides'  face  grew 
white,  his  muscles  lengthened,  his  arms  tore 
from    the    sockets,    his    tendons    crack    like 
strings  on  a  musician's  instrument — "Tell  now, 
tell  now,"  this  it  is  Gratus  says;  and  Simonides, 
white  now  as  in  death,  faints;  is  taken  from 
the  rack  a  shapeless  mass  of  bones  and  flesh, 
to  be  wheeled  to  and  fro  as  children  are,  but 
his  lips  are  sealed — and  he  keeps  his  secret! 
That  is  Simonides,  and  he  is  an  honor  to  our 
race. 


The  Jew  in  Fiction  199 

And  this  is  Ben  Hur  beside  him.  Recite 
his  history,  and  you  seem  rehearsing  Israel's 
story.  A  prince  of  David's  house,  loved,  opu- 
lent, he  is  hurried  to  galley  slavery.  Chained, 
he  tugs  at  the  oars;  is  bent,  and  not  broken. 
He  knits  thews  like  Nimrod's  as  he  plies  his 
oar.  Upon  a  battle-day  with  pirates,  his  chain 
is  loosed;  he  joins  the  battle,  is  flung  from  the 
wrecked  galley,  rescues  Arrius  the  duumvir, 
is  adopted  as  his  son  and  heir,  is  schooled  at 
the  Roman  ludi  and  academe;  but  not  for  an 
hour  does  he  forget  mother,  Tirzah,  Jerusa- 
lem. They  haunt  him,  as  shadows  do  the  hills. 
He  owes  a  debt;  he  will  be  true.  He  seeks  in 
vain;  the  waves  of  years  have  washed  their 
very  footprints  from  the  shore;  they  are  but 
memories.  But  at  Antioch,  capital  of  Syria, 
at  the  circus,  he  meets  the  author  of  his  dis- 
aster, Messala,  rich,  haughty,  imperious;  a 
Roman,  therefore  cruel.  Ben  Hur  is  Jew,  and 
knows  how  to  hate,  as  he  knows  how  to  love. 
He  has  sheikh  Ilderim's  eagles  from  the  desert, 
and  plans  to  be  avenged  through  them.  The 
Roman  circus,  the  procession  of  competitors, 
the  exact  maneuver,  the  iron  muscles,  the  self- 
mastery  written  on  his  face,  the  imperturbable 
rocking  in  the  reeling  chariot,  persistency  of 


200  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

purpose  cruel  as  the  grave,  the  crash,  Messala 
wounded  for  life,  and  the  race  won!  Is  not 
that  the  Jew?  You  must  love  Ben  Hur.  His 
youth,  his  suffering,  his  unbroken  spirit,  his 
constancy  of  filial  love,  his  resistance  in 
Daphne's  grove,  his  physical  might,  his  vast 
composure,  his  settled  purpose,  his  love  for 
Esther,  and  his  final  love  for  Christ, — you 
must  love  Ben  Hur. 

And  this  pageant  is  all  passed.  We  hear 
not  footfalls,  but  echoes;  and  now,  when  the 
procession  is  vanished,  say:  "We  have  seen 
a  prince  among  races  pass."  These  Jews  thrill 
us  as  the  Romans  did  not.  They  mystify  us 
like  a  prophecy.  Their  achievements  and  his- 
tory, their  prowess  and  capacity,  their  love  and 
devotion,  their  sense  of  God  at  hand,  their 
unbewildered  hope,  their  fortitude  and  heroism 
and  disaster  and  services  to  mankind, — all 
break  across  the  spirit  like  some  driving  sea; 
and  we  are  as  those  bewildered  by  the  shock. 


Robert  Burns 

Poetry,  in  common  with  other  utterance,, 
is  exponential.  Men  speak  from  the  heart. 
In  instances  not  a  few,  this  exponential  char- 
acter is  so  pronounced  that  the  poetry  becomes 
autobiographical.  This  was  the  case  with 
Byron,  as  it  was  with  Shelley.  We  seem  to  be 
reading-  confessions  as  certainly  as  when  we 
read  Rousseau  or  Goethe.  In  Shakespeare's 
dramas,  however,  personality  is  absolutely 
wanting.  He  is  impersonal.  We  can  not  re- 
construct this  colossus  from  his  plays;  for,  like 
his  players,  he  wears  a  mask.  Of  no  poet  do 
we  know  so  little,  because  his  speech  does  not 
betray  him.  Even  in  his  sonnets,  there  is  but 
dubious  light  thrown  on  the  face  of  this  poet 
laureate  of  the  world.  In  ''Paradise  Lost"  we 
get  scarcely  a  clue  to  guide  us  through  the 
maze  of  the  Miltonic  life.  In  Robert  Brown- 
ing the  traces  of  self-revelation  are  as  uncer- 
tain as  a  footpath  through  a  woodland  in  the 
dark. 

But  this  Scottish  lyrist,  Robert  Burns,  is 
as  communicative  as  a  child.    He  is  no  sphinx 

20I 


202  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

to  keep  secrets  hid  behind  a  stony  brow.    The 
tell-tale  blushes  on  a  woman's  cheek  are  not 
more   self-revealing  than   the  poetry  of  this 
rare  son  of  tarn  and  fell,  burn  and  crag,  of 
loch  and  ben.     I  think  it  quite  within  bounds 
of  truth  to  say  we  learn  more  of  Burns  from 
his  poems  than  from  his  letters.     The  letters 
are  stilted,  artificial,  scarcely  sincere,  certainly 
far  from  natural.     In  them  he  is  in  dress-suit, 
and  is  self-conscious.    It  is,  however,  as  if  in  all 
his  verse  he  had  said,  "I  will  tell  you  one  thing 
more  about  myself."     With  this  flavor  on  all 
Burns  has  written,  his  poetry  becomes  pictur- 
esque as  the  explanatory  clause  of  a  strange 
life  in  which  the  whole  world  is  come  to  have 
an  interest.    His  poetry  is  himself,  and  himself 
is  Scotland.     This  I  take  to  be  one  cause  of 
the  perennial  popularity  of  his  writings.    Since 
those  leaves  were  blown  as  by  autumn's  blast 
from   Scotland's    trees,   the    interest    in   their 
beauty  has  abated  not  a  whit.    Men  read  them 
now  with  the  same  pathetic  thought  as  when 
the  fate  of  Burns  was  a  fresh  memory  to  the 
heart. 

Burns  is  the  common  people's  poet. 
Charles  Dickens  was  himself  when  he  de- 
scribed middle  class  or  slum  life  of  that  Eng- 


Robert  Burns  203 

land  whose  social  historian  he  was.  Outside 
of  such  circle  his  movement  is  uncertain  as  a 
bird  lost  in  the  drift  of  storm.  Burns  was  and 
is  to  Scotland  what  Dickens  is  to  England, 
with  this  reservation,  that  he  attempted  the 
one  thing  his  genius  was  suited  to,  as  music  to 
poet's  words.  He  knew  his  limitations,  nor 
attempted  to  pass  them.  But  Burns  was  more 
than  a  singer  for  Scotland.  He  speaks  for  the 
common  man.  This  is  the  meaning  of  his 
dialect;  for  Burns  is  the  greatest  writer  of  dia- 
lect. Out  of  this  he  was  never  at  home.  He 
has  immortalized  a  strange,  sweet  speech. 
How  the  Scotch  tongue  abounds  in  beautiful 
diminutives!  The  "wee  bit,  cowerin',  timorous 
beastie"  could  not  have  been  written  in  Eng- 
lish. The  verse  is  absolutely  indigenous  to 
Scotland.  You  can  not  transplant  it.  Burns 
is  untranslatable.  He  belongs,  and  must  be- 
long, to  the  land  of  his  nativity,  as  entirely  as 
the  laverock  or  his  mountain  daisy.  He  spoke 
the  people's  speech.  This  is  the  potent  secret 
of  the  growing  audiences  this  poet's  minstrelsy 
gathers.  We  common  men  people  the 
world.  The  land  is  ours;  and  we  must  have  a 
voice.  Dialect  is  the  language  of  the  common 
folk.    Travel,  culture,  society,  wear  away  pro- 


204  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

vincialism  in  speech  by  their  attrition.  Culture 
tends  to  make  a  universal  language.  But  the 
common  man  is,  in  a  sense,  planted  in  the  soil. 
He  belongs  to  a  locality;  and  thought  and 
speech  are  flavored  by  this  environment;  and 
to  hear  a  poet  use  common  men's  language 
is  to  feel  him  brother.  Of  Burns,  a  world  will 
exclaim,  "He  sings  for  us;  this  is  our  poet, 
singing  songs  we  could  not  articulate."  Burns 
is  not  visitor  in  his  world;  he  is  inhabitant. 
He  does  not  look  and  speak;  he  lives  and 
speaks.  For  the  toil  to  which  most  men  find 
themselves  heirs,  he  stops  to  sing.  The  plow 
stands  still  mid-furrow  while  the  Mousie  is 
a-writing,  or  while  the  Daisy  is  having  her 
elegy  written.  The  world  wants  a  spokesman ; 
and  Burns  is  he.  And  our  spokesman  shall  be 
dear  to  us,  as  son  to  father.  Popularity  arises 
from  this  fact,  as  may  readily  be  seen.  He  is 
the  voice  of  common  man,  and  our  voice  shall 
not  be  permitted  to  echo  itself  into  silence. 
This  is  the  very  fortress  of  Burns's  strength. 
He  is  knit  into  dialect.  Out  of  it  he  was  an- 
other and  a  lesser  man.  He  was  no  figure  for 
the  palace  halls — Tennyson  was  that — but  be- 
longed to  the  field  and  its  dewy  morning.  He 
seems  a  piece  of  nature.    He  and  the  daisy  are 


Robert  Burns  205 

alike  indigenous  to  the  soil.  Toil  speaks  in 
him.  His  were  the  songs  of  labor  and  the 
songs  of  love.  Toil  singing,  that  is  Burns. 
And  labor  ought  to  sing.  Toil  is  not  morose, 
but  full  of  singing  and  laughter,  and  calls, 
"My  poet,  sing  for  me." 

Burns  has  given  Scotland  an  immortal 
voice.  In  a  later  day,  Scott,  with  wizard  touch, 
opened  wide  the  book  of  Scotch  history,  lo- 
cality, and  character.  But  to  history  and  geog- 
raphy Burns  gave  little  heed,  and  to  character 
— Scotland's  character,  Burns's  character — 
lie  gave  all  heed.  We  go  to  Scotland  to-day 
because  Burns  and  Scott  have  put  the  passion 
in  the  blood.  You  will  note  the  difference  be- 
tween the  method  of  these  two.  Scott  makes 
history  and  topography  chief.  He  puts  em- 
phasis on  castle,  rock,  and  glen.  Burns  never 
does.  These,  if  they  appear  in  his  poetry,  are 
there  as  unconsciously  as  the  rare  flavor  of 
Scotch  dialect.  History  he  is  not  alive  to. 
Experience  is  all,  the  setting  as  it  may  be; 
since  Burns  is  where  he  is,  it  could  be  no  other. 
But  we  must  always  feel  he  is  not  writing 
about  Scotland;  he  is  spokesman  for  his  race 
and  common  man.  He  tells  their  story,  and 
takes  us  into  the  confidence  of  a  strange,  at- 


206  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

tractive,  and  profound  clan  among  earth's  peo- 
ples.   The  world  has  not  lost  interest  in  Scot- 
land since  Burns  spoke  for  it.    Its  voices  have 
been   in   our  ears,   like  the   sound   of  far-off 
waters  heard  at  night.    A  fascination  has  clung 
about  kirk  and  cottage,  which  abides  like  the 
heather  on  the   moors.     Scotch   character  is 
unique.     Taciturn,  undemonstrative,  unosten- 
tatious, seemingly  hard,  a  handshake  instead 
of  a  kiss,  actually  leal  as  morning  to  the  sun, 
unspeakably  tender,  self-respecting,  a  humor 
indulging  in  no  laughter,  but  cutting  deep; 
loyal  to  Scotland,  fixed  to  localities,  intense 
in  localism,  abstemious,  forcing  a  livelihood 
from  nature's  niggardliness,  high-idealed,  in- 
tensely religious,  a  profound  moral  conscious- 
ness with  its  inevitable  concomitant  an  alert 
conscience, — such,  in  poor  outline,  is  Scotch 
character,  and  a  study  of  perennial  attractive- 
ness.   Dr.  John  Brown,  Barrie,  and  Ian  Mac- 
laren  may  thank  Robbie  Burns  for  their  con- 
stituency.   The  life  this  bard  of  poverty  made 
so  much  of  will  be  a  theme  whose  interest  will 
never  flag.    Nor  is  the  land  less  attractive  than 
the  character  rooted  in  its  soil.    The  babble  of 
runnels,  the  limpid  pool,  the  highland  loch, 
the  dash  of  waterfalls,  the  dark  mountain-side 


Robert  Burns  207 

shaded  with  pines  standing  solemn  and 
changeless, — these  constitute  a  land  of  un- 
usual beauty.  History,  climate,  topography, 
character,  all  Scotch  and  all  classic  now;  and 
Scott  and  Burns  have  made  them  so.  Yet  now 
that  we  think  of  it,  Burns  makes  little  of  these 
accessories.  He  barely  mentions  the  sea. 
How  strange  that  is,  and  what  a  sense  of  loss 
is  on  us  in  the  lack!  Burns  is  no  painter  of 
landscapes.  He  is  figure-painter.  A  face,  his 
art  means  that.  What  scenery  we  have  in  him 
is  inferential ;  but  the  life  of  Scotland,  the  lofty 
patriotism,  his  glory  in  manhood  and  asser- 
tions of  equality,  how  these  voices  make  the 
pulse  throb! 

There  is  in  Burns,  as  an  exponent  of  Scotch 
character,  absolute  fidelity,  characteristic 
humor,  somber  simplicity,  adherence  to  duty, 
a  scorn  of  sham,  strength,  music,  and  heart, — 
these  phrases  are  descriptive  of  the  salient 
features  of  his  poetry.  His  pictures  are  true. 
"The  Cotter's  Saturday  Night"  illustrates  two 
qualities  of  Burns,  his  accuracy  of  delineation 
and  the  somber  hues  of  Scotch  thought  and 
action.  One  sees  the  scene,  not  because  he 
tries,  but  because  he  can  not  help  it.  The 
measured  methodicality  of  the  Scot  is  seen  in 


208  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

what  was  done,  and  in  the  order  of  the  doing. 
Can  future  Scotland  fail  to  know  eighteenth 
century  Scotland  after  this  poem  has  given  the 
picture?  A  stenographer's  report  had  not  been 
more  accurate.  The  flavor  of  duty,  the  going 
the  way  ordained,  is  always  inseparable  from 
a  noble  Scotch  life.  Fealty  to  duty  is  the 
largest  quality  of  soul,  and  no  people  has  ever 
known  the  art  of  burning  this  principle  on  the 
heart  more  indelibly  than  the  Scotch.  Their 
literature  is  rilled  with  it.  Harsh  this  code  of 
conduct  may  be,  but  heroic  it  always  is.  It 
glorifies  men  and  women,  and  they  seem  walk- 
ing in  this  as  in  a  sunset.  The  exceeding 
beauty  of  the  Highland  Marys  lies  in  their  sim- 
plicity, fidelity,  and  purposeful  existence. 

Scotch  humor  is  all  but  unequaled.  There 
is  in  it  a  touch  of  acid;  but  rare  humor  it  is. 
Tam  O'Shanter — what  could  be  more  native, 
accurate,  and  grave?  Gravity  is  always  an  ele- 
ment in  this  Scotch  humor.  One  can  imagine 
the  great  delight  with  which  a  coterie  of 
tavern  worthies  would  rehearse  this  tale  as 
they  sat  around  their  cups.  "To  a  Louse  on 
a  Lady's  Bonnet"  seems  to  me  captivating. 
He  who  can  refrain  from  laughter  in  reading 
this  bit  of  jocularity,  surely  has  no  humor  in 


Robert  Burns  209 

himself,  and  is  fit  for  one  knows  not  what. 
The  "Address  to  the  Deil"  is  a  bit  of  humor 
which  fairly  inebriates.  Burns  evidently  saw 
the  fun  of  things,  and,  in  that  sober  Scotch 
way  which  eschews  laughter,  throws  auditors 
into  convulsions. 

But  humor  can  never  constitute  a  man  a 
poet.  Love,  duty,  and  pathos  are  materials  of 
poetry.  In  the  noblest  verse,  as  in  Tennyson, 
the  element  of  sadness  is  omnipresent.  Tears, 
not  laughter,  are  in  the  poet's  eyes.  We  can 
lose  Burns's  bacchanals  and  feel  no  loss,  but 
his  hvmns  of  the  heart  we  can  not  do  without. 
Bannockburn!  Why,  it  clashes  like  Miriam's 
cymbals!  Our  blood  boils  like  the  sea  in 
tempest.  The  fervor  of  heroic  days  thunders 
in  our  ears  the  call  to  war.  No  nobler  ode  to 
liberty  has  been  written. 

Burns  was  erratic,  fickle,  false,  restive,  in- 
temperate, melancholy,  and  moody  as  a  Scotch 
sky.  His  fits  seize  him.  He  was  a  creature  of 
moments.  Laughter  or  weeping,  no  one  could 
tell  which  should  proceed  from  this  minstrel. 
A  big  heart,  a  feverish  passion,  a  lust  for  wine 
and  women,  a  manhood  burned  out  like  a 
candle  to  the  socket, — this  is  Burns.     He  was 

a  man  with  his  full  share  of  weakness  and 

14 


2IO  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

wickedness,  but  with  a  large  endowment  of 
genius,  nobility,  and  vision;  and  we  pass  his 
aberrancies  by  tenderly,  because  of  the  man- 
hood he  did  possess.  With  Burns  the  world 
has  forgotten  much.  His  was  a  trumpet  for 
freedom.  That  there  was,  however,  something 
of  belligerency  in  his  notions  of  equality  and 
freedom,  we  can  not  in  truth  deny.  He  was 
in  fierce  unrest  with  his  condition.  Content- 
ment he  no  more  knew  than  do  caged  eagles. 
He  saw  clearly  that  a  man  was  a  man  for  his 
own  sake  and  in  his  own  name ;  that  blood  was 
not  to  be  tested  by  age,  but  by  quality.  But  he 
rebelled  against  being  poor.  He  did  not  feel 
safe  within  himself  in  conscious  dignity.  He 
therefore  railed  at  those  above  him.  Calm,  dis- 
passionate, he  never  was.  He  did  not  know 
how  to  be  unperturbed  as  fate.  What  scion 
of  a  noble  house  in  this  era  whose  fame  is  com- 
parable with  the  fame  of  Burns?  Why  did  he 
not  rest  his  dignity  on  his  worth?  He  was 
not  thus.  Fever  was  on  him.  Passion  burned 
on  his  pages,  and  made  his  poems  invectives. 
But  aside  from  this  blemish,  there  is  in  him 
vision  of  man  as  man  and  worth  as  worth, 
which  much  of  a  commonplace  as  it  is  with  us 
when  America  has  familiarized  the  earth  with 


Robert  Burns  211 

this  idea,  was  in  the  eighteenth  century  seen 
dimly  when  at  all. 

Burns's  poetry  is  essential  music.  Verse 
may  be  either  the  poetry  of  music  or  the  poetry 
of  thought.  Some  poets  contribute  thought 
to  the  soul.  They  must  enlarge  the  mind  to 
contain  the  thoughts  they  bring.  They  are 
vessels  laden  with  merchandise,  piled  in  hold 
and  high  upon  the  deck.  To  be  a  wharf  at 
which  such  ships  unlade  is  to  enlarge  the  soul 
till  it  becomes  ample  as  the  shore  of  ocean. 
Shakespeare  will  do  this.  You  must  become 
philosopher  if  you  stay  in  his  company.  With 
him,  music  is  subordinate  to  logic.  Argu- 
ments march  like  battle-ranks.  He  will  have 
you  see  souls  struggle  as  wrestlers  in  the 
Olympic  games.  You  grow  fatigued  like  a 
traveler  climbing  steep  and  long  ascents.  So 
with  Browning;  you  may  not  play  but  must 
labor,  if  you  are  to  be  his  companion. 
"Weighty  truths  startle  your  spirit.  Music  is 
secondary.  The  inspiration  is  the  massiveness 
of  thought.  Cyclops  lifts  for  you.  Other 
poets  are  poets  of  music.  They  sing.  Their 
thought  is  of  minor  consequence,  and  would 
not  bear  analysis.  Yet  what  thought  has  the 
singing  lark?    You  do  not  ask  that,  because 


212  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

the  singing  suffices.  And  this  is  the  true  esti- 
mate; poets  of  thought  and  poets  of  music 
are  not  enemies,  but  friends.  Each  has  his 
ministry,  and  his  ministry  is  his  apology. 
Music  is  an  end.  Burns  is  not  a  thought  poet. 
He  has  not  given  one  new  thought  or  a  vigor- 
ous idea.  Nor  is  this  a  discourtesy  to  say  of 
him;  for  he  was  not  a  thinker,  that  is  all;  but 
he  was  a  singer.  Music  has  power  of  its  own, 
nor  does  it  need  to  borrow  thought,  since  it 
is  thought.  Music  makes  you  dream.  Who, 
having  listened  to  noble  melody  (with  closed 
eyes  as  is  best),  but  has  found  his  soul  in  a 
state  of  ferment  ere  the  music  sobbed  into 
silence?  Vast  unrest  seized  him.  He  felt  him- 
self capable  of  the  heroic.  He  was  an  unfet- 
tered might.  Music  had  loosed  him  and  let 
him  go.  Do  we  not  see  how  aspiration  is  its 
own  justification?  How  that  is  life's  chief  de- 
sideratum, and  therefore  how  ample  a  vindi- 
cation the  poet  of  music  has?  His  music  lifts 
us  as  mountains  do  not;  and  Burns  is  a  mu- 
sician. 

His  genius  was  lyric,  not  didactic  nor  epic. 
Those  who  hold  Burns  might  have  written  a 
national  epic,  seem  to  me  to  obscure  the  main 
truths  of  his  literary  character.    "The  Cotter's 


Robert  Burns  213 

Saturday  Night"  is  not  Burns  at  his  best, 
though  the  contribution  is  one  we  would 
not  willingly  let  die.  As  of  old  the  troubadour 
sung  to  the  music  of  the  harp,  and  melody  of 
hand  and  lip  rose  together,  so  this  poet's  verse 
is  of  the  lyre.  It  was  meant  for  singing.  It 
sings  itself.  You  can  no  more  keep  Burns's 
words  from  music,  than  you  can  keep  the 
wimple  from  singing  in  the  glen. 

His  poetry  is  essential  music.  Like  streams 
among  his  native  crags,  his  poems  ripple  with 
laughter  and  delight.  Strange  melodies  are 
nurtured  among  those  Northern  hills.  Who 
that  has  heard  a  bagpipe  play  can  well  forget 
its  haunting  music?  And  many  of  Burns's 
poems  were  written  to  fit  Scottish  airs.  They 
were  fitted  to  music.  If  ever  a  purely  lyric 
poet  lived  and  wrote,  Burns  was  that  poet. 
I  doubt  not  his  poems  sang  themselves  in  his 
mind.  Redundant  with  love  and  hope,  sick 
with  despair,  bugle-note  of  triumph,  philippic 
against  the  existing  order,  whatever  theme, 
whatever  temper,  music  was  never  wanting.  A 
skylark  singing  toward  the  sky  in  the  first 
flush  of  morning  has  not  sweeter  notes  than 
this  child  of  the  Scotch  glen. 

But  Burns's  heart  was  his  noblest  potency. 


214  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

Because  his  music  bubbles  from  the  heart  as 
water  from  hidden  springs,  we  can  not  elude 
its  witchery.  Logic  we  may  be  deaf  to;  but 
one  language  is  universal  speech;  namely,  the 
language  of  the  heart.  When  his  heart  speaks, 
it  is  that  Burns  becomes  dynamic.  He 
changes  love  often ;  but  his  love  speaks  passion 
at  the  hour.  Love  must  always  have  lute  and 
voice.  It  is  the  master  inspiration  of  the 
world.  And  as  long  as  love  lives  (and  who 
does  not  know  love  to  be  immortal  as  the 
heart?)  Burns  will  be  her  minstrel.  We  forget 
his  constancy  lasted  but  a  day  in  the  fervor  of 
his  protestations  of  undying  affection.  With 
him  love  seems  as  love  always  should,  fresh  as 
dew  on  flowers  of  morning.  To  love  is  to  see 
but  her,  hear  but  her.  The  lovers  straying 
across  hills  scented  with  heather-bloom,  or 
down  the  burn  where  the  waters  themselves 
seem  whispering  like  lovers  the  oft-repeated 
story ;  the  parting  mixed  of  kisses  and  of  tears ; 
the  praying  for  the  coming  of  evening  star 
when  lips  shall  meet  once  more, — these  are 
pictures  whose  colors  are  unfading  so  long  as 
Burns  shall  sing  love  lyrics  in  our  ears.  Him- 
self has  said,  that  with  him  love  and  poetry 
awoke  together.     The  sonsie  highland  lassie 


Robert  Burns  215 

was  inspirer  of  his  poet's  song.  Love  has  ever 
a  singing  heart;  and  who  that  has  heard  song 
of  a  woman  looking  for  her  lover  must  know 
love  has  singing  lips.  Love  is  tender,  and 
caresses  its  native  speech.  Burns  is  filled  with 
tenderness.  Tears  keep  watch  in  his  eyes. 
"The  Daisy,"  "To  a  Mouse,"  "On  Seeing  a 
Wounded  Hare  Limp  by  Me,"  are  all  utter- 
ances of  the  heart  not  less  certainly  than  his 
songs  of  love.  Susceptible  to  every  fair  face, 
he  was  not  less  so  to  every  inspiration.  His 
moods  were  changing  as  moods  of  sky.  Tears 
chase  laughter  from  his  face  as  drink  drove 
reason  from  his  brain.  But  love  of  nobleness 
was  in  him;  and  the  passionate  gift  of  song 
used  him  as  if  he  had  been  a  lute.  Love  of 
truth,  country,  river,  cushat,  mousie,  daisy, 
lassie  (be  she  Mary,  Eliza,  or  Jean), — that  was 
Burns's  literary  biography.  Love  means  mel- 
ancholy; and  it  is  quite  beyond  credence  how 
persistently  shadows  hang  over  all  Burns 
wrote,  until  you  take  his  poems  and  go  over 
them  at  a  sitting.  Rollicking  he  seems  to  be, 
but  sad  at  heart  you  will  always  find  him.  The 
fear  of  parting  is  on  his  meeting  with  Mary. 
"The  Daisy"  is  rich  in  this  sentiment,  which 
thrills  all  his  poetry.     Every  poet  is  impres- 


2i6  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Otter  Essays 

sionable.  He  runs  to  catch  the  form  of  things. 
And  as  sandstone  holds  prints  of  waves  which 
long  ago  ran  up  the  strand  of  some  forgotten 
sea,  so  in  this  poet's  songs  we  trace  the  play 
of  variant  and  vagrant  moods.  And  as  in 
voices  of  the  laughing  tide,  there  still  remain 
reminiscences  of  storms  and  tales  of  ship- 
wreck, in  Burns  is  whisper  of 

"And  forward  though  I  canna  see,  I  guess  and  fear." 

"Even  thou  who  mourn'st  the  daisy's  fate, 
That  fate  is  thine — no  distant  date; 
Stern  ruin's  plowshare  drives,  elate 

Full  on  thy  bloom; 
Till  crushed  beneath  the  furrow's  weight 
Shall  be  thy  doom." 


The  Psychology  of  Nathaniel  Haw- 
thorne 

Hawthorne  looked  a  genius  and  a  gentle- 
man. And  his  face  did  neither  misconceive 
nor  misrepresent  him.  Genius  does  not  al- 
ways, nor  even  as  a  rule,  communicate  itself 
to  the  features.  Many  a  mediocre  looks  a 
sage,  and  many  a  sage  looks  a  mediocre. 
Mind  does  not  undertake  to  show  its  creden- 
tials. The  kingdom  of  intellectuality  is  a  hid 
kingdom.  In  rare  instances,  however,  mind 
and  body  conspire  together;  and  a  man  looks 
the  thing  he  is.  Bearing,  poise  of  head,  se- 
cret-revealing eyes,  mobile  features,  noble 
brow,  sensitive  mouth, — these  with  mute  elo- 
quence assert,  "Genius  is  come."  Nathaniel 
Hawthorne  falls  into  this  company.  Looking 
at  his  portrait,  you  would  anticipate  surpris- 
ing powers,  and  be  disappointed  if  he  pos- 
sessed them  not.  But  Hawthorne  will  not 
disappoint  you.  He  is  America's  represent- 
ative man  of  letters. 

Compare  the  faces  of  Hawthorne  and 
Poe.    There  is  a  pronounced  similarity.    Look 

217 


2l8  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

at  them.  Both  speak  the  possession  of  genius. 
Both  have  sensitive  faces,  and  both  are  sensi- 
tive men — Poe  with  coal-black  hair,  and  eyes 
which  fairly  stabbed  the  air;  Hawthorne  with 
ruddy  locks  and  quiet  eyes.  But  both  men  saw. 
Both  looked  behind  thing's.  Both  dealt  with 
the  unusual.  They  saw  no  ordinary  sights. 
The  thought  of  both  was  weird.  One  saw 
"The  City  in  the  Sea;"  the  other  "Septimius 
Felton."  Scan  these  faces  closely.  They  are 
alike.  No,  they  are  unlike;  and  both  obser- 
vations are  accurate.  Similar  they  are,  and 
dissimilar  they  are.  Between  the  two  is  a 
great  gulf.  Poe's  was  a  powerful  genius,  but 
it  was  sensuous.  His  is  a  body  expression. 
His  tales  are  terrible  and  harrowing  as  Ste- 
venson or  Hall  Caine.  He  deals  in  machinery. 
His  story  moves  madly  like  the  maelstrom  he 
depicts.  Poe  makes  much  of  the  external. 
He  paints  the  visible.  He  could  paint  the 
torture  of  the  damned,  if  canvas  were  afforded 
him.  But  Hawthorne  stands  solitary  now. 
He  and  Poe  have  quit  company,  as  travelers 
whose  paths  have  parted.  He  makes  little 
of  the  exoteric.  His  treatment  of  a  theme  is 
essentially  spirituelle.  The  physical  plays 
scant  part  on  this  stage.     His  theme  is  soui, 


Psychology  of  Nathaniel  Hawthorne  2I9 

not  body;  his  stage  hidden,  not  apparent. 
With  Poe  the  tragic  element  is  much,  the 
story  is  primary;  with  Hawthorne,  the  story 
is  slight,  and  there  is  little  physical  movement. 
He  is  as  the  Fates,  who  weave  in  darkness. 
Stand  and  watch  a  swollen  river,  whose  turbu- 
lent current  bears  ice-drifts  past  you.  You  see 
the  sullen  surface  of  the  stream.  It  moves 
visibly  and  swiftly  toward  the  far-off,  unseen 
ocean;  moves  pitiless  as  an  inquisitor.  You 
saw  the  riot  of  waters.  Such  is  Poe's  art. 
But  stand  on  the  same  bank  when  the  river  is 
frozen  over.  You  look  across  a  field  of  snow 
quiet  as  an  Arctic  night;  no  visible  motion, 
yet  underneath,  the  waters,  tireless,  night  and 
day,  push  on  toward  the  sea.  We  saw  them 
not,  but  they  swept  on.  This  is  Hawthorne's 
art. 

Contrast  the  paintings  of  Munkacsy  and 
Hoffman.  Munkacsy  delights  in  many  fig- 
ures. In  ''Christ  before  Pilate"  the  Orient 
seems  gathered  in  the  procurator's  palace. 
Two  persons  are  central  truly;  but  the  many 
are  present.  So  in  the  recent  picture,  "Before 
the  Strike,"  the  forms  multiply  like  groups 
of  soldiery  on  eve  of  battle.  He  will  construct 
a  background  of  faces.    His  canvas  seems  a 


220  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

battle-piece,  so  crowded  is  it  with  figures.  In 
Hoffman,  on  the  contrary  the  figures  are  few 
at  most;  as  in  "Christ  and  the  Young  Ruler."' 
He  will  throw  the  wealth  of  his  skill  into  a 
single  face,  as  he  does  in  "Christ  in  Geth- 
semane."  And  Hawthorne  is  like  Hoffman. 
He  never  multiplies  figures.  He  is  chary  of 
characters.  He  is  not  as  Dickens,  who  fairly 
bewilders  with  actors,  who  fills  the  stage,  and 
whose  creative  power,  productive  as  spring, 
grows  a  wilderness.  Not  so  Hawthorne.  He 
is  a  literary  solitary  who  craves  few  compan- 
ions. Four  is  his  select  number.  Judging 
from  his  productions,  he  was  believer  in  the 
sacred  quaternion.  There  are  four  characters 
in  "The  Blithedale  Romance;"  four  in  "The 
House  of  Seven  Gables;"  four  in  "Septimius 
Felton;"  four  in  "Marble  Faun;"  four  in 
"Scarlet  Letter."  He  rivets  our  gaze  on  a 
small  company.  All  his  talent  is  sacred  to  the 
elaboration  of  these  four  characters;  and  he 
brings  them  out  in  perpetual  relief,  as  if  he 
had  scultpured  them  against  a  sky. 

And  Hawthorne  is  locative.  He  does  not 
transplant  characters.  They  are  rooted  in  the 
soil  as  cedars  are.  There  is  magic  in  emigra- 
tion.    The  voyage  thrills  the  spirit;  and  the 


Psychology  of  Nathaniel  Hawthorne  221 

hope  beyond  the  voyage  thrills  it  more.  And 
the  migratory  spirit  has  played  no  insignificant 
part  in  romance.  "The  Virginians"  live  and 
love  in  two  worlds.  "King  Noanette"  shifts 
continents.  "John  Inglesant"  passes  lightly 
from  England  to  Italy  as  swallows  do.  "The 
Bondman"  transports  Red  Jason  from  Iceland 
to  the  Isle  of  Mona,  and  back  again,  to  work 
out  the  tragedy  and  triumph  of  his  career  and 
character.  "Evangeline"  is  a  wanderer;  and 
you  shall  trace  her  love  down  the  long  shore  of 
ocean,  and  up  the  great  river's  bank,  by  ashes 
of  camp-fire  and  site  of  vanished  tent.  Evan- 
geline wanders  like  the  moaning  wind, 

"That  seeks  for  rest,  and  rest  can  never  find;" 

"For  Faith  and  Freedom"  crosses  the  ocean, 
and  to  the  Old  World's  wrongs  adds  the  New 
World's  deliverance.  The  sobs  of  seas,  the  flap 
of  sails,  the  rattle  of  the  oars  in  the  rowlocks, 
and  new  scenes  and  rush  of  unexpected  emo- 
tions,— these  are  on  us  when  the  history 
changes  lands.  We  are  watchers  at  a  ship's 
prow,  expecting  discovery.  But  Hawthorne 
stays  at  home  like  homesick  age.  He  is  no 
wanderer,  but  holds  fast  to  locality.  Find 
where  his  story  begins,  and  you  will  need  no 


222  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

one  to  tell  you  where  it  ends.     He  holds  to 
place  like  a  lover.     Life  and  death  will  need 
no  more  room  than  the  radius  of  a  stone's-cast 
to  make  their  revelations.     Recalling  that  this 
novelist  lived  in  a  New  World,  where  distances 
were  great,  where,  in  consequence,  the  intel- 
lectual invitation  to  peregrination  was  insidi- 
ous, where  the  love  of  localities  had  not  in  the 
nature  of  the  case  seized  on  civilization — re- 
calling this,  the  wonder  of  Hawthorne's  art 
grows  on  us.     Environment  can  no  more  ac- 
count for  literature  than  for  character.     Life 
is    not    made,    but    self-made.       Hawthorne 
haunts  New  England  like  a  ghost.     It  is  a 
magnet  to  attract   him.     Puritan   place   and 
temper  have   cast  a   spell  over  him.     He  is 
weird  as  the  tossing  of  tree-tops  seen  in  gath- 
ering darkness;  but  his  wanderings  will  not 
lead    him    far.      The    fascination    which    held 
Hester  Prynne  a  prisoner  in  the  house  of  her 
shame,  held  Hawthorne  and  his  fictions  to  a 
solitary  spot. 

Hawthorne  is  intensely  introspective.  He 
is  no  story-teller  in  the  ordinary  sense.  He 
could  have  been  that.  Such  an  imagination 
as  he  possessed  could  have  invented  new 
theaters  for  fiction;  but  he  chose  a  different 


Psychology  of  Nathaniel  Hawthorne  223 

route  to  immortality.  What  a  story-teller 
Scott  was!  How  events  trample  on  each 
other,  like  cavalry  horses  rushing  to  battle  1 
What  a  story-teller  Weyman  is !  We  shall  lis- 
ten many  years  to  hear  more  stirring  and 
strengthening  tales  told  us  than  "A  Gentle- 
man of  France"  and  "Under  the  Red  Robe." 
What  a  story-teller  Doyle  is,  if  you  listen  to 
his  "White  Company"  and  to  "Micah  Clarke!" 
To  my  mind  "Micah  Clarke"  is  one  of  the 
strong  historical  romances  of  the  last  decade. 
And  what  a  story-teller  Gilbert  Parker  is! 
Thanks  to  him  always  for  "The  Seats  of  the 
Mighty."  ''The  Three  Guardsmen?"  Yes, 
we  hear  the  galloping  steeds  and  the  music  of 
sword-play  as  these  valiant  musketeers  charge 
past  us,  unpent  tempests.  "The  Prisoner  of 
Zenda"  is  a  royal  specimen  of  the  relator's 
art.  Its  dash,  naivete,  heroism,  love,  loss, 
longing,  fealty  to  duty,  and  stimulation  to 
nobilities  in  him  who  reads, — these  make  a 
story  thrilling  as  Lancelot's  warfare.  Haw- 
thorne rode  not  in  these  lists.  He  made  no 
attempt  to  do  these  things.  He  belonged  not 
to  the  field,  but  to  the  cell.  Psychology  is  his 
choice  of  theme.  He  comes  to  souls.  He  will 
not  look  at  a  pageant  pass  the  door,  but  will 


224  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

stand  at  the  door  and  look  into  the  habitation. 
He  will  not  let  us  report  for  the  soul,  but  will 
compel  the  soul  to  report  for  itself.  This  pur- 
pose, it  will  be  observed,  transfers  us  into  the 
domain  of  genius.  Shakespeare  is  psycholo- 
gist, and  calls,  "Tell  me  thy  comedy;"  or  "Sob 
thy  tragedy  to  me."  And  Hawthorne  will  in- 
troduce us  to  the  tragedy  of  souls.  With 
death  as  a  part  of  the  machinery  of  fiction  he 
has  slight  patience.  What  has  the  death  of 
Arthur  Dimmesdale  to  offer  us  matched  with 
his  living  death?  The  gibbet  on  which  he 
bared  his  secret  to  the  world  was  welcome  to 
him  as  any  ship  that  ever  bore  homesick  trav- 
eler home. 

And  more,  it  is  a  diseased  psychology  you 
must  study,  if  Hawthorne  is  to  be  your  pre- 
ceptor. He  is  not  grewsome.  No  odor  of  the 
morgue  is  perceptible  in  his  tales.  Not  a  de- 
lirious life  as  Ulalume,  but  a  diseased  and  not 
a  healthy  life  is  considered.  As  a  physician, 
he  diagnoses  a  case.  These  men  and  women 
you  shall  meet  are  not  usual  folk.  We  feel  to 
fear  lest  we  look  at  ghosts.  The  color  on  the 
cheek  is  a  hectic  flush.  Mystery  hangs  about 
them  as  mists  about  the  tall  cliffs  of  the  sea. 
When  we  sight  Lady  Macbeth  walking  in  her 


Psychology  of  Nathaniel  Hawthorne  225 

sleep  through  the  dark  with  lit  candle  and 
wide-open  eyes,  we  know  something  is  awry. 
Or  if  Hamlet's  ghost  rise  from  his  grave,  and 
stalk  a  specter  of  midnight  on  the  cliffs  that 
fringe  the  surly  ocean,  Bernardo  the  soldier, 
as  Horatio  the  scholar,  will  guess  buried 
Denmark  hides  some  dread  secret  at  his  heart. 
But  we  are  not  more  conscious  of  mystery 
here  than  in  Hawthorne's  dramas.  We  feel 
we  stand  on  the  porch  of  tragedy,  and  if  the 
door  were  to  be  pushed  open,  some  specter 
would  thrust  us  back  into  the  dark.  These 
houses  are  all  haunted.  Our  shadows  frighten 
us.  We  walk  in  mystery  as  those  who  walk  in 
mists.  Fogs  lift;  but  this  tragic  element  never 
lifts  its  shadow  from  Hawthorne's  page.  The 
romance  ended,  the  mystery  is  only  deepened 
and  mocks  you  like  ghostly  laughter.  Con- 
sider the  closing  of  "The  Marble  Faun."  We 
thought  to  catch  sight  of  the  blue  sky  at  the 
close,  but  reckoned  wrong.  A  haunting  sense 
of  uncertainty  is  on  you  at  the  close,  as 
through  the  story.  Donatello,  Miriam,  and 
Miriam's  murdered  shadow,  what  secret  of 
theirs  has  been  told  you?  Where  the  dead 
priest  is  we  know.  Graves  can  be  found;  but 
where  the  living  Miriam  and  Donatello  are, 

15 


226  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

who  can  certify?  We  are  like  those  who  try- 
to  track  travelers  along  a  coast  when  their 
footprints  have  been  washed  out  by  the  tide. 
We  are  baffled.  All  soul-life,  I  know,  is  mys- 
terious, but  this  is  not  of  that  sort.  This  is  the 
mystery  of  disease.  Menace  is  in  the  air.  We 
are  neighboring  with  the  abnormal. 

And  Hawthorne,  as  all  dramatists,  is  a  stu- 
dent of  morals.  You  must  have  noticed  how 
life  never  can  grow  great  till  it  passes  into  the 
ethical.  Bare  intellect  can  never  bind  us  pris- 
oners to  its  car.  But  the  ethical  grasps  us  in 
hands  of  iron.  We  are  as  those  who  dream. 
Volition  is  ethics.  Love  is  ethics.  Conduct 
is  ethics.  Struggle  is  ethics.  The  quality  of 
righteousness  is  on  every  field  where  battle 
waxes  great.  Moral  issues  engage  us  in  Lear, 
in  Valjean,  in  John  Inglesant,  and  in  Sidney 
Carton.  If  novelist  or  dramatist  would  throw 
us  as  a  strong  wrestler  does,  his  appeal  must 
be  to  the  ethical.  The  moment  life  begins  to 
grow,  then  is  the  scene  shifted  from  the  intel- 
lectual to  the  moral.  What  Hawthorne  con- 
siders is,  How  do  souls  behave?  "Spirit,  what 
do  you?  Speak  your  motive."  Right  and  con- 
science are  themes  pre-eminent,  which  hold 
mankind,  and  greet  you  here. 


Psychology  of  Nathaniel  Hawthorne  227 

Nor  must  we  neglect  the  literary  setting  of 
these  psychological  studies.  And  this  natu- 
rally divides  itself  into  two  sections;  namely, 
his  style  and  his  diversity.  That  Hawthorne's 
English  is  ideal  has  become  an  axiom.  Deal- 
ing with  the  rudest  passion,  his  style  is  never 
turgid.  It  flows  on,  flows  deep,  but  is  limpid 
always.  Faultless  language  was  one  of  his 
credentials.  He  was  not  Addisonian;  Irving 
was  that.  He  was  himself.  He  created  a  style. 
Air  is  not  more  pellucid.  I  never  read  after 
him,  that  I  do  not  see  the  stream  far  among 
the  mountains,  whose  waters  were  never  dark- 
ened save  by  the  shadow  of  passing  bird  or 
cloud.  Whatever  he  tells  wins  you,  because 
of  the  beauty  of  his  words.  You  have  no 
doubt  heard  voices  in  the  dark,  which  you 
wished  might  not  hush  because  the  music  of 
them  was  so  sweet.  I  feel  so  with  Hawthorne. 
His  work  is  as  graceful  as  the  tracery  upon  a 
winter's  window. 

Since  the  theme  is  essentially  reduplicative 
in  his  various  works,  one  would  suppose  Haw- 
thorne would  lack  diversity.  Nothing  is  re- 
moter from  the  fact.  He  has  instead  given  us 
captivating  diversity.  He  never  palls  on  us. 
I  read  not  long  ago  all  his  works  in  immediate 


228  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

succession,  so  that  the  flavor  of  each  lingered 
on  the  lip  when  all  were  ended;  and  my  inter- 
est did  not  flag.  This  is  the  crucial  test  of 
variety.  I  did  not  seem  looking  at  the  same 
scenes,  or  on  the  same  faces.  And  when  we 
recall  that  in  them  all  are  the  same  forces 
operative  so  as  to  make  each  a  reiteration  of 
the  other,  the  surprise  increases.  DuMaurier, 
whatever  name  he  assigned  the  woman  in  his 
society  cartoons,  gave  her  the  same  face.  All 
his  women  are  twins.  Sameness  wearies  us, 
like  a  drawling  voice.  But  Hawthorne  does 
not  commit  this  sin.  Every  portrait  stands 
out  as  individual  as  Hawthorne's  own  face. 
To  instance  a  case:  "Marble  Faun,"  "House  of 
the  Seven  Gables,"  and  "The  Scarlet  Letter" 
are  studies  in  conscience;  yet  they  are  so  cun- 
ningly differentiated  as  to  seem  the  literary 
progeny  of  different  authors.  That  is  art.  We 
scarcely  can  conceive  we  are  looking  at  the 
same  face,  but  as  the  cast  of  Donatello  at  the 
hand  of  Kenyon,  the  face  was  the  same,  the  re- 
semblance easy  to  discover;  still  so  different 
are  they  in  characteristics,  so  changed  is  the 
expression  in  the  two,  as  that,  to  the  artist 
himself,  it  becomes  barely  believable  the  casts 
are  meant  for  the  same  face.    His  faces  are  as 


Psychology  of  Nathaniel  Hawthorne  229 

the  figure  of  the  archangel  Miriam  would  have 
repainted.  He  stood  tall,  strong,  conquering, 
wonderful,  unwounded,  the  dragon  beneath 
his  feet,  but  on  his  shield  no  dint  that  tells  of 
battle  fierce  as  death.  Miriam  would  have 
painted  the  triumphant  angel  scarred,  bleed- 
ing, with  hacked  shield  and  helmet,  and  with 
hacked  and  broken  sword,  and  yet  a  con- 
queror still!  Two  faces  and  one  personality. 
Hawthorne's  various  works  are  to  be 
studied  by  the  dubious  light  of  a  diseased  psy- 
chology. Souls  in  abnormal  states  are  they 
all.  "The  Blythedale  Romance"  means  hyp- 
notism; "The  House  of  the  Seven  Gables" 
means  witchcraft;  "Septimius  Felton"  means 
the  elixir  of  life;  "The  Marble  Faun"  means  a 
hybrid  existence  as  animal-man;  and  "The 
Scarlet  Letter"  means  conscience  a  consuming 
fire.  We  may  agree  on  these  being  the  cen- 
tral meanings  of  these  great  books.  The  char- 
acters few,  the  plot  is  brief  and  lacks  intricacy. 
As  stated,  the  fascination  of  Hawthorne  does 
not  consist  in  the  story.  The  weird  concep- 
tion and  the  elaboration  of  character  leave  a 
silhouette  lying  like  a  deep  shadow  across  the 
spirit.  We  can  not  well  forget  Hawthorne's 
characters.    They  seem  graven  with  acids  on 


230  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

the  memory.  They  are  weird,  but  not  ex- 
travagant. Art  lies  in  making  the  improbable 
seem  probable.  DeFoe  has  had  no  superior 
in  this  province.  But  the  extravagant,  as  such, 
lacks,  artistically.  "Pilgrim's  Progress"  is  an 
allegory  truly,  but  so  natural  is  it  as  to  seem 
not  parable  but  biography.  Sometimes  care- 
less readers  deem  a  treatment  extravagant, 
which  is  rather  most  accurate  portraiture.  For 
instance,  Stevenson's  "The  Strange  Case  of 
Dr.  Jekyl  and  Mr.  Hyde"  has  been  classed 
as  absurd  and  impossible  by  many  readers  who 
did  not  lack  in  intelligence;  whereas,  in  a  score 
of  years,  no  book  has  been  written  more  ex- 
actly true.  Terribly,  tragically  true  the  story 
is.  Not  history  nor  biography  has  gotten  so 
home  to  truth  as  this.  Stevenson  has  written 
a  theological  volume  and  called  it  fiction,  and 
it  is  the  somber  fact  of  too  many  souls.  Evil 
indulged  in  masters  the  good  with  malignant 
certainty — this  is  the  meaning  of  Jekyl  and 
Hyde;  and  no  one  dares  deny  the  fearful  fact. 
So  the  seeming  extravagant  may  be  closest 
truth.  This  is  true  of  Hawthorne's  fictions. 
Unreal  as  they  seem,  they  do  touch  us  at  every 
point.  Let  "The  Blythedale  Romance"  stand 
for  the  malignant  influence  man  may  exercise 


Psychology  of  Nathaniel  Hawthorne  231 

on  man;  ''The  House  of  the  Seven  Gables"  for 
the  continued  baneful  effect  of  evil,  and  that  a 
wicked  man  may  cast  a  shadow  black  as  mid- 
night on  a  good  life;  "Septimius  Felton"  for 
the  mind  infatuated  with  a  solitary  idea  be- 
come unbalanced  and  disqualified  for  service 
and  manhood;  and  "The  Scarlet  Letter"  for 
the  doctrine  that  a  good  life  is  the  only  safe 
life.  With  such  meanings,  how  rational  and 
serviceable  these  weird  tales  become!  He  has 
told  the  common  truths  in  such  uncommon 
fashion  as  to  write  the  moral  across  the  sky 
of  every  soul.  Hawthorne  is  a  professor  of 
moral  philosophy,  if  you  will.  He  is  bringing 
the  power  of  a  superlative  genius  to  enforce 
the  truth  that  there  is  moral  order  in  the 
world,  and  that  sin  is  a  violation  of  compact 
with  your  own  soul.  I  shall  always  hold  the 
superior  novelist  to  be  a  potent  teacher  of  the 
better.  Our  generation  has  had  no  more 
tragic  lesson  taught  it  than  in  "Anna  Kare- 
nina."  False  to  others,  she  became  therein 
false  to  herself.  Passion  is  not  the  first  law  of 
conduct.  Duty  sits  higher  at  the  feast  than 
sex  love.  No  writer  on  social  ethics  could 
have  burned  the  validity  of  the  marriage  rela- 
tion on  the  reason  and  conscience  as  this  novel 


232  The  Poefs  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

has  done.  Hawthorne  is  to  be  accounted  a 
notable  moral  force.  He  thrusts  home  as  Rus- 
tum  did,  when  beside  the  Oxus  he  unwittingly 
fought  with  his  son  and  slew  him.  So  deep 
the  spear  had  pierced  Sohrab's  side,  to  with- 
draw it  was  to  die.  And  when  we  recall  how 
easy  it  is  to  forget  the  weighty  facts  of  obser- 
vation and  experience,  the  service  rendered 
by  those  who  make  moral  truths  unforgetable, 
becomes  worthy  and  memorable.  Let  us  not 
be  deceived;  Hawthorne  is  as  accurate  as  sun- 
beams. There  are  no  new  truths;  but  genius 
makes  old  truths  seem  new. 

"Fanshawe"  Hawthorne  disowned, therefore 
for  it  no  speech.  "The  Blythedale  Romance" 
is  a  tale  least  like  its  author,  and  uses  the 
machinery  of  the  then  current  fiction.  In  the 
following  regard,  however,  it  was  normal  to  the 
author's  manner;  it  was  a  study  of  the  abnor- 
mal, and  the  characters  were  that  quaternion 
grown  so  familiar  in  the  author's  later  works. 
The  character  of  Hollingsworth  is  finely 
drawn.  He  is  the  vender  of  reforms.  His 
pockets  are  full  of  them;  and,  like  the  pseudo 
reformer,  the  conditions  of  getting  on  with 
him  are  that  you  fall  in  with  his  fad.  Zeno- 
bia's  love  is  passion;  and  Priscilla  is  an  apt 


Psychology  of  Nathaniel  Hawthorne  233 

picture  of  the  results  of  a  hypnotized  subject. 
Hypnotism  emasculates  the  will,  and  tends  to 
reduce  the  free  personality  to  the  category  of 
physical  phenomena.  Miles  Coverdale,  poet, 
is  the  one  attractive  actor  on  the  stage,  and 
the  love  of  him,  revealed  at  the  last  as  the  sun 
breaks  through  a  cloud  at  setting,  is  in  keep- 
ing with  Hawthorne's  daintiest  execution. 

But  "The  Scarlet  Letter/'  "The  Marble 
Faun,"  "The  House  of  the  Seven  Gables,"  and 
"Septimius  Felton,"  are  masterpieces.  They 
are  cameos  cut  by  some  rare  lapidary.  One 
knows  not  which  to  admire  the  most.  Each 
in  its  way  seems  to  me  perfect.  There  is  no 
sunshine  like  that  of  Indian  summer;  and  in 
these  books  we  are  walking  in  such  a  golden, 
mellow  haze.  "The  Scarlet  Letter"  is  a  brave 
caption, as  is  "The House  of  the  Seven  Gables;" 
though  we  are  told  by  James  T.  Fields  that 
Fields  had  more  to  do  with  coining  these  titles 
than  Hawthorne.  But  the  result  is  justifying. 
We  suspect  romance  from  "The  House  of  the 
Seven  Gables."  Tragedies  look  from  the  win- 
dows. "The  Marble  Faun"  has  about  it  a  sus- 
picion of  delight;  and  "Septimius  Felton"  is 
a  euphonious  name  for  a  fiction.  "The  Scarlet 
Letter"  was  the  romance  on  which,  as  on  a 


234  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

rock,  the  novelist's  fame  was  builded.  Its  ap- 
peal met  with  instant  response.  Critics  saw 
America  had  found  a  voice.  A  tragedy  of  con- 
science longer  sustained  than  Macbeth  is  here, 
and  one  which  ought  to  be  compared  with 
"Pippa  Passes"  and  "Macbeth."  Hester 
Prynne,  with  the  scarlet  letter  blazing  on  her 
breast;  little  Pearl,  elfin-like,  dancing  as  sun- 
beams dance  on  troubled  streams;  Roger  Chill- 
ingworth,  dark,  taciturn,  injured,  avenging, 
relentless,  penetrating  in  his  influence  and  in- 
sight, inexorable  as  fate,  tenacious  of  his  hate 
as  death,  masterful  in  his  personality;  and 
Arthur  Dimmesdale,  weak  rather  than  wicked, 
sensitive,  gifted  with  genius  and  the  weakness 
which  goes  as  the  shadow  of  genius,  a  lover 
overborne  of  passion  and  a  coward, — these  are 
the  dramatis  persons  of  a  tragedy.  Hester 
Prynne  is  woman  the  lover,  faithful,  injured, 
silent,  wearing  shame  as  if  it  were  a  crown, 
and  not  a  cross;  and,  though  loathed  and 
branded  by  society,  keeping  love  glowing  in 
her  heart  like  western  windows  smitten  with 
the  sun;  watching  her  love  from  afar;  not  curs- 
ing nor  despising  him  as  he  deserved,  but,  as 
women  will,  seeing  his  nobilities  exalted  and 
harboring  no  resentment.    Dimmesdale  afraid 


Psychology  of  Nathaniel  Hawthorne  235 

to  take  his  place  with  Hester,  but  loving  her; 
a  saint  in  the  world's  thought,  his  eloquence 
growing  fervid  as  tropic  noon,  he  was  an 
oracle.  Eloquence  sat  upon  his  lips.  Great 
passions  broke  across  his  spirit,  as  dashing 
waves.  He  was  not  bad,  weak  rather.  Sinned, 
he  had.  He  and  Hester  were  joint  criminals, 
she  bearing  her  shame  before  the  world;  he 
canonized  by  that  same  world.  Conscience 
cried  aloud,  "Bear  shame  with  her;"  and  his 
spirit  cried,  "How  can  I?  How  can  I?"  But 
conscience  spake  on.  Its  speech  never  si- 
lenced. His  life  was  living  martyrdom.  At 
last  he  seized  the  gibbet,  where  Hester  Prynne 
had  year  by  year  stood  a  spectacle  of  shame, 
and  called  Hester  and  little  Pearl  to  him,  and 
showed  his  sin  and  penitence,  and  died.  Fic- 
tion presents  not  many  scenes  likes  Dimmes- 
dale  standing  at  night  in  the  pillory  of  shame 
rehearsing  his  guilty  and  ghastly  past.  Noth- 
ing is  forgotten.  The  Puritan  sternness  and 
purity,  the  attraction  of  love,  which  bound 
Hester  to  her  dishonored  home,  the  lack  of 
sense  of  injury  toward  her  husband  Roger 
Chillingworth,  the  ship  lying  at  anchor  in 
which  she  and  hers  were  to  sail  across  the  seas 
to  liberty  and  love,  the  ship  ready  to  sail,  and 


236  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

Dimmesdale,  displaying  his  scarlet  letter,  sail- 
ing away  on  the  ship  of  death, — this  is 
tragedy! 

Donatello  is  the  central  figure  of  "The 
Marble  Faun,"  and  might  be  set  as  an  illustra- 
tion of  the  evolutionary  hypothesis.  He  is  an 
importation  of  the  beautiful  Greek  mythology. 
The  faun  was  a  Greek  conception,  part  ani- 
mal, part  man.  With  the  Greek  all  was  ani- 
mate. Plato  taught  the  world  had  a  souk 
The  Greek  world  was  alive.  Nymph,  merman, 
naiad,  every  mountain  and  stream  and  sea  had 
gods.  The  poesy  of  the  notion  was  captivat- 
ing; and  the  faun  was  a  man  having  the  hairy 
ears  of  a  squirrel,  and  this  was  his  bond  to  the 
animal  world.  The  Greek  received  this  cur- 
rent mythology  with  never  a  thought  of  its 
philosophy.  All  nature  insensibly  passed  into 
life.  The  water's  babbling  was  not  inanimate, 
but  rather  the  voices  of  the  naiads.  Beautiful 
the  dream  is;  but  the  construction  of  a  philos- 
ophy is  quite  another  matter.  This  difficult 
task  Hawthorne  attempts  in  "The  Marble 
Faun."  And  the  subject  for  elaboration  is, 
What  shall  awaken  our  laughing  faun,  Dona- 
tello, to  manhood?  Love  does  not  do  it.  He 
is  a  part  of  nature,  and  moody  like  a  pool  over 


Psychology  of  Nathaniel  Hawthorne  237 

which  glances  the  cloud,  and  in  which  laughs 
the  sunshine.  The  carelessness  of  birds  is  on 
him.  Forecast  he  does  not  know.  Care  and 
he  are  not  brothers.  But  because  of  love  for 
Miriam,  Donatello  becomes  a  murderer.  Im- 
mediately his  life  is  changed.  He  is  murky  as 
a  sky  filled  with  storms.  Laughter  is  a  for- 
gotten art,  joy  a  forgotten  story;  but  he  be- 
comes a  man.  The  faun  is  gone;  the  man  is 
here.  And  the  ethico-psychological  question 
is  raised,  "Is  sin  necessary  to  manhood?"  Did 
sin  make  Donatello  a  man?  Was  sin  neces- 
sary to  the  evolution  of  character?  Is  sin  an 
essential  of  progress?  This  is  the  question  of 
"The  Marble  Faun."  It  clouds  the  sky,  and 
fills  the  air  with  intimations  of  tempests.  And 
this  is  a  superior  question  of  morals.  And  the 
reply  is,  Not  sin  made  Donatello  a  man,  but 
suffering.  He  needed  awakening.  A  kiss 
awoke  the  sleeping  beauty;  but  no  kiss  could 
rouse  him.  The  sting  of  lash  and  cut  of  sword, 
— these  must  bring  some  spirits  to  themselves. 
And  suffering  roused  Donatello  to  guess  he 
was  a  man.  With  this  interpretation,  history 
is  consonant.  I  have  read  somewhere  the 
statement  that  "The  Marble  Faun"  is  nothing 
other  than  a  guide-book  to  Rome.    The  criti- 


238  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

cism  seems  superficial  in  the  extreme.    As  well 
say  the  ocean's  office  was  to  fling  back  sun- 
light.    In  this  volume  Hawthorne  has  given 
himself  to  a  profound  study,  and  as  unique  as 
profound.    How  shall  a  soul  be  stung  to  man- 
hood?   This  is  a  dignified,  not  to  say  a  sublime 
question.     Conscience  put  Donatello  on  the 
rack.     Suffering  became  a  medicine  to  him. 
Crime  is  never  essential  to  progress,  though  in 
the  present  system  it  would  appear  suffering 
is  necessary.     Who  will  deny  manhood  to  be 
cheap  at  any  price?    Who  will  deny  either  that 
suffering    has    brought    many   a    soul    to    its 
greater  self?    Eugenie  Grandet,  the  one  fault- 
less character  of  Balzac,  passed  into  a  calm, 
sweet,    wonderful    womanliness    through    the 
ministry  of  suffering.     Donatello  might  have 
suffered    from    unrequited    love    as    Eugenie 
Grandet,  and,  like  herself,  have  risen  to  high 
nobility  of  character.     The  chisel  cuts  shape- 
less marble  into  forms  of  imperishable  loveli- 
ness; and  suffering  chisels  spirit.    Better  man- 
hood at  any  cost.     Character  is  never  costly 
when  its  worth  is  rightly  conceived. 

"Septimius  Felton"  is,  to  my  mind,  a 
stronger  novel  than  usually  allowed.  In  a 
sense,  the  work  was  left  incomplete;  but  this. 


Psychology  of  Nathaniel  Hawthorne  239 

was  not  in  the  story,  rather  in  the  minuter  de- 
tails. To  all  intents  the  novel  is  complete. 
Not  a  defect  is  apparent  in  the  entire  narra- 
tive. The  English  is  exquisite.  The  style  is 
chaste,  even  above  the  high  average  so  natural 
to  Hawthorne.    Say  with  Riley, 

"O,  but  the  words  were  rainy  sweet!" 

Septimius  Felton  seems  a  younger  Ham- 
let. He  is  scholar,  and  not  afraid  of  action, 
yet  shuns  it.  The  inertia  of  thought  stays  his 
steps.  The  antithesis  between  scholar  and  sol- 
dier is  finely  brought  out  in  the  juxtaposition 
of  Septimius  Felton  and  Robert  Hagburn; 
and,  as  always,  Hawthorne  does  what  he  at- 
tempts, well.  Felton  is  infatuated  by  the  quest 
for  the  elixir  of  life.  What  a  play  for  high 
powers  is  here  afforded!  A  dim  background 
of  a  dreamy  past  spent  like  a  taper  burnt  out, 
in  this  self-same  search,  is  mapped,  as  in  "The 
House  of  the  Seven  Gables"  the  background 
of  witchcraft  is  sketched.  A  consummate  artist 
is  Hawthorne,  as  any  who  ever  attempted  fic- 
tion. He  has  thrown  a  spell  about  you  till 
you  are  as  one  walking  in  the  land  of  lotus- 
eaters.  The  extent  to  which  a  mind  may  be 
absorbed  in  an  idea  is  one  of  the  surprises  of 


240  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

psychology;  and  this  tale  paints  a  picture  of  a 
man  thus  absorbed.  The  bewitchment  of  the 
New  World  is  added  to  the  bewitchment  of 
the  Old  in  the  admixture  of  Indian  magic  and 
herb  wisdom  as  shown  in  Felton's  aunt,  and  in 
the  encounter  between  the  young  British  offi- 
cer and  Felton,  in  which  the  officer  succumbs 
to  the  prowess  of  the  young  American.  In 
no  one  of  his  novels  is  the  plot  more  cunningly 
laid  than  in  this.  Felton  is  immersed  in  his 
investigation.  Like  all  dreamers,  he  is  clutch- 
ing the  base  of  the  rainbow's  arch.  To- 
morrow he  will  be  immortal.  How  intoxicat- 
ing visions  are!  Out  of  the  grave  where  his 
slain  foe  lies  buried,  springs  a  flower  which  is 
to  form  the  last  ingredient  of  the  elixir.  One 
step  more — and  then?  His  heart  leaps  high 
like  fountains.  And  meantime  Sybil  Dacy 
has  come,  come  as  a  ghost,  crept  into  his 
life;  more,  crept  into  his  heart  as  shadows 
creep  into  an  evening  sky;  and  he  finds  him- 
self a  lover.  The  elixir  is  completed.  They 
two  shall  drink.  What  is  a  solitary  immor- 
tality? This  wine  of  deathless  life  glows  ruddy 
in  the  glass — and  Sybil  drinks,  and  when  Sep- 
timius  Felton  reaches  for  the  draught,  she 
drops  the  glass  upon  the  hearth,  and  shivers  it 


Psychology  of  Nathaniel  Hawthorne  241 

to  atoms.  And  all  the  precious  liquor  spilt! 
'T  is  death,  not  life,  crimsoned  the  goblet. 
Rankest  poison,  meant  by  her  for  him,  was 
brewed.  The  elixir  of  immortality  is  here  for 
drinking,  and  she  has  drunk  some  and  spilled 
the  rest.  There  is  strange  fascination  in  the 
story.  I  have  not  often  been  so  thrilled  as 
in  reading  it.  Felton,  intoxicated  with  his 
dream,  now  with  his  love,  sees  as  lovers  do 
but  two,  and  a  draught  and  immortality.  And 
when  he  grasped  at  immortality  he  found  he 
held  in  his  hand  death's  garment  instead. 
Sybil  hating  him,  coming  to  avenge  her  lover's 
slaughter,  loves  him  she  came  to  slay,  and 
drinks  the  deadly  draught  she  meant  for  him. 
Love  has  one  law.  Not  many  passages  in 
literature  compare  with  the  closing  passages 
of  Sybil  Dacy's  life.  Hear  her  say  with  fail- 
ing sight,  "I  thought  I  loved  that  youth  in 
the  grave  yonder;  but  it  was  you  I  loved, — 
and  I  am  dying.  Forgive  me  for  my  evil  pur- 
poses, for  I  am  dying.  Kiss  me,  thou  poor 
Septimius,  one  kiss!"  and  as  he  stooped  to 
■do  her  bidding,  she  drew  back.  "No,  there 
shall  be  no  kiss!  There  may  a  little  poison 
linger  on   my   lips.     Farewell!"     Love   and 

•death's  night! 

16 


242  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

"The  House  of  the  Seven  Gables,"  written 
in  less  vivid  colors  than  "The  Scarlet  Letter," 
is  no  less  vivid  a  tragedy.  The  colors  are 
grays.  Twilight  shadows  all.  At  the  last,  and 
the  last  only,  it  lifts,  and  when  lifted,  lo,  it  is 
morning!  The  background  of  witchcraft 
gives  the  semblance  of  the  unreal  to  all  the 
tale.  The  antagonism  of  Pyncheon  and 
Maule,  dating  from  the  poor  man's  being  de- 
frauded of  his  little  all;  the  lordly  Puritan 
dedicating  his  own  house  by  his  own  tragic 
death;  the  baneful  influence  of  a  later  Maule 
on  sweet  Alice  Pyncheon;  the  perpetual  mem- 
ory of  the  prophecy  of  old  Matthew  Maule, 
"God  shall  give  him  blood  to  drink,"  until  at 
last,  like  as  the  feud  betwen  Montague  and 
Capulet  might  have  been  healed  in  a  united 
Romeo  and  Juliet,  this  feud  died  in  the  mar- 
riage of  Phcebe  Pyncheon  and  Holgrave 
Maule, — surely  this  narrative  is  the  creation 
of  genius.  But  chief  interest  attaches  to  Clif- 
ford and  Hepzibah  Pyncheon  and  Judge  Pyn- 
cheon. Reynolds  painted  no  portraits  so  life- 
like as  these.  There  they  sit.  Judge  Pyn- 
cheon complaisant,  successful,  ambitious,  un- 
scrupulous, selfish,  tyrannical,  suave,  and  rich. 
He  is  what  Dimmesdale  was  not,  a  hypocrite. 


Psychology  of  Nathaniel  Hawthorne  243 

He  is  bad,  from  heart  to  finger-tip.  No  light 
falls  to  relieve  his  character.  He  is  murderer, 
and  has  thrown  suspicion  on  his  cousin  Clif- 
ford, who  was  heir  to  the  dead  man's  wealth, 
and  is  condemned  to  life  imprisonment  for  a 
crime  he  did  not  commit;  and  Clifford  Pyn- 
cheon  falls  heir  to  a  blasted  name,  a  ruined 
life,  and  finally  to  a  dazed  intellect.  He  is  a 
ship,  wrecked  on  the  reef,  Judge  Pyncheon. 
The  condemned  man  was  sensitive,  and  in  his 
temperament  eminently  artistic.  He  was  sen- 
suous. Physical  beauty  or  ugliness  smote  on 
him,  as  a  hand  on  an  instrument.  Pure,  he 
had  yet  lacked  character,  which  is,  in  itself, 
a  fortress  not  to  be  taken  by  assault,  and  in 
prison  broke  under  his  load  of  shame,  and 
became  a  harmless  madman.  But  Hepzibah 
his  sister,  had  believed  in  him,  and  loved 
him  through  all.  She  never  wavered,  seeing 
with  woman's  insight  that  not  Clifford,  but  the 
Judge,  was  the  real  murderer.  At  last  the 
poor  shadow  of  what  once  was  a  man  crept 
back  unawares  to  the  House  of  the  Seven 
Gables.  There,  in  poverty,  loneliness,  pride, 
and  sore  disgrace,  Hepzibah  Pyncheon  has 
lived  these  years  alone.  Life  meant  to  her, 
Clifford.    In  the  vocabulary  of  her  heart  was 


244  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

but  one  word.  Her  days  are  wasted  like 
spent  sunshine.  Clifford  at  home  once  more, 
mad,  helpless  as  a  child,  is  disturbed  in  his 
sense  of  sensuous  beauty  by  his  sister's  homely 
face  and  her  shambling  movement,  at  which 
her  dear  eyes  dim  with  tears.  In  her  heart 
is  sacrifice  sweet  as  heaven.  God,  looking  at 
her,  grows  glad.  An  echo  to  her  brother's 
need,  Hepzibah  Pyncheon  is  a  woman  so 
homely,  brave,  beautiful  in  soul,  as  to  make 
one  in  love  with  all  womanhood  for  her  dear 
sake. 

The  death  of  Judge  Pyncheon  in  the  hour 
of  his  highest  honor  is  a  touch  of  genius,  not 
less  wonderful  than  Arthur  Dimmesdale's 
death,  though  totally  unlike  it.  This  is  a 
study  in  conscience,  as  "The  Scarlet  Letter." 
In  Dimmesdale,  conscience  had  burned  the 
scarlet  on  his  bosom.  But  Judge  Pyncheon 
is  conscienceless,  as  if  he  had  been  not  man, 
but  brute.  He  was  his  own  divinity.  Not  a 
sole  virtue  touches  him  to  beauty.  Not  a 
flower  blooms  on  this  sterile  rock.  There  is 
something  worse  than  suffering  from  con- 
science, and  that  is  not  to  suffer  at  all,  to  have 
moral  paralysis,  to  be  let  alone  of  God,  and 
so  take  one's  own  way  down  to  hell.     Better 


Psychology  of  Nathaniel  Hawthorne  245 

a  thousand-fold  be  Arthur  Dimmesdale  than 
Judge  Pyncheon.  Dimmesdale  stands  on  a 
scaffold,  and  his  world  sees  him;  so  he  dies. 
But  Pyncheon,  with  his  hidden  sin,  dies  alone. 
He  sits,  quiet,  nothing  disturbs  him — he  is 
dead.  The  house  is  empty,  the  night  comes 
on,  the  tick  of  his  watch  in  his  hand  is  the 
solitary  whisper  in  the  silence;  still  he  stirs 
not.  Day  dawns,  the  sunlight  creeps  across 
his  face,  the  watch  runs  down — and  silence, 
silence!    God  hath  left  him;  he  is  dead. 

These  be  the  creations  of  one  dreamer's 
brain;  and  having  seen  and  heard  them,  their 
tragedy  completed,  we  turn  away,  knowing 
Nathaniel  Hawthorne  was  a  genius  of  such 
commanding  sort  as  Literature  has  seldom 
named  among  her  votaries. 


Shakespeare's  Women 

Shakespeare's  women  are  the  world's 
women.  Provincialism  and  cosmopolitanism 
exist  in  literature  as  in  life.  The  provincial 
writer  delineates  a  local  type.  He  is  as  the 
old  masters,  who,  though  painting  the  Ma- 
donna, produced  a  Dutch,  German,  or  Italian 
face,  according  as  the  artist  belonged  to  the 
Flemish,  German,  or  Italian  school.  He 
painted  the  women  he  knew.  Our  provincial 
writer  gives  the  characters  he  knows.  The  cos- 
mopolitan writer  does  no  more.  He  gives  us 
those  he  knows;  but  his  friendships  are  as  the 
horizons  of  the  world.  They  embrace  the 
planet.  Shakespeare  must,  through  all  ages, 
remain  the  type  of  universal  genius.  The  lute 
he  holds  is  not  of  English  make.  I  conceive 
Charles  Dickens  to  be  the  master  of  English 
types;  to  this  day  he  is  unapproachable.  He 
knows  the  fiber  of  English  character  best  and 
worst;  and  an  acid  criticism  of  Charles  Dick- 
ens's delineations  will  be  in  essence  a  like 
criticism  of  English  character.  Squeers, 
Uriah  Heep,  Smike,  Copperfield,  and  Sidney 
246 


Shakespeare's  Women  247 

Carton  are  indigenous  to  English  soil.  And 
Shakespeare  knows  England,  but  is  not  Eng- 
lish. Walter  Savage  Landor  has  acutely  ob- 
served, 

"Shakespeare  is  not  our  poet,  but  the  world's." 

He  knows  Englishmen.  His  characterizations 
are  as  exact  as  photography.  Falstaff,  the 
duke  of  Bedford,  Edmund  the  Bastard,  Rich- 
ard II,  Edward  I,  Henry  VIII,  are  like  as  life; 
his  coloring,  his  figures,  his  background,  his 
self-revelation  of  character,  are  worthy  the  art- 
ist; but  when  he  has  given  us  the  canvas 
filled  with  English  figures,  wassail,  war,  com- 
edy, tragedy,  ringing  laughter,  and  blind 
Lear's  cry  of  anguish,  the  artist  has  scarce 
begun  his  creative  work.  Dickens  is  at  home 
in  England;  in  America  and  Venice  he  is  a 
traveler ;  but  Shakespeare  was  by  birth  a  citi- 
zen of  the  world,  and  by  chance  a  citizen  of 
England.  In  Troy,  in  Greece,  in  Rome,  in 
mediaeval  Italy,  in  Denmark,  in  Scotland — in 
each  his  dialect  seems  that  of  a  native.  He 
knows  not  Englishmen  alone,  but  men. 
Othello,  Timon,  Caliban,  Prospero,  Mark  An- 
tony, Falstaff,  Macbeth,  Lear,  Shylock,  Iago, 
Antonio,    Hamlet, — these    all    seem   as    men 


248  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

eager  to  whisper  their  dearest  secret  in  this 
poet's  ears. 

From  these  observations,  accurate  in  point 
of  truth,  it  will  follow  that  Shakespeare's 
women  are  the  world's  women,  thus  recurring 
to  the  proposition  with  which  this  article  set 
out.  And  how  large  a  business  is  in  hand 
becomes  apparent.  This  is  larger  traffic  than 
Prince  Hur's  argosies  ever  brought  to  Simon- 
ides'  wharves  at  Antioch  on  the  sea.  In  liter- 
ature and  life  woman  is  a  central  figure.  Men 
and  women  are  joint  actors  on  every  stage 
where  comedy  laughs  like  love  on  wedding 
morning,  or  tragedy  bleeds  like  Hamlet  on  a 
crimsoned  sand.  Women  and  men  are  pro- 
tagonists. They  are  as  similar  as  stars,  they 
are  as  dissimilar  as  middle  night  and  middle 
day.  The  psychology  of  man  is  the  psychol- 
ogy of  woman;  the  psychology  of  woman  is 
so  unlike  that  of  man  as  that  for  the  two,  dif- 
ferent disquisitions  must  be  written.  Woman 
is  woman  in  the  finest  fiber  of  body  and  spirit. 
Man  and  woman  stand  at  opposite  quarters 
of  the  sky;  and  are  as  Cassiopeia  and  Orion 
looking  forever  into  each  other's  eyes.  The 
qualities  of  sex  are  wrought  into  the  very 
texture  of  the  soul,  and  are  as  ineradicable 


Shakespeare's  "Women  249 

as  the  properties  of  matter.  Of  man  and  wo- 
man we  say  they  are  counterparts.  These  two 
give  all  the  material  of  tragedy  or  joy.  They 
are  as  necessary  each  to  the  other  as  voice  to 
echo,  and  echo  to  voice.  As  far  apart  as  the 
diameter  of  the  skies,  they  are  still  so  near 
as  that  their  leaning  lips  may  touch.  Love  is 
life's  sweet  commonplace,  because  Ferdinand 
and  Miranda  possess  mutual  attraction  like  the 
tug  that  pulls  the  stars  together.  It  is  an  old 
history,  this  record  of  woman's  power.  So 
long  as  men  are  men,  so  long  will  women  be 

"A  thing  of  beauty  and  a  joy," 

but  likewise  a  creature  of  unexploited  powers. 
Love  knows  strange  witchery  and  mastery. 
Merlin  and  Vivien  are  portraits  hanging  on 
the  walls  of  every  age.  The  world's  first  morn- 
ing had  its  Epithalamium,  even  as  has  its 
golden  afternoon. 

But  in  fealty  to  history  be  it  said  that 
woman's  part  in  the  world's  doings  is  a  grow- 
ing part.  The  Orient  and  the  early  Occidental 
world  saw  her  with  veiled  face.  But  now,  as 
is  legitimate,  the  veil  is  fallen  from  her  eyes. 
It  is  not  meet  that  beauty  such  as  hers  should 
hide  its  face.     It  is  not  possible  to  estimate 


250  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

the  value  of  beauty.  Beautiful  womanhood  is 
God's  visible  aesthetics,  fairer  than  a  Titian  or 
a  Rembrandt.  The  beautiful  tales  of  early  love 
— of  Jacob  and  Rachel,  of  Boaz  and  Ruth — 
are  lovely  as  an  evening  sky,  yet  in  them  is  a 
sensible  lack.  Woman  seems  not  to  be  a  le- 
gitimate figure  in  the  scene.  She  seems  not 
wholly  planned  for  in  the  artist's  thought. 
The  picture,  in  other  words,  seems  not  to  have 
been  painted  with  her  in  mind,  as  a  momen- 
tous figure  on  his  canvas.  It  is  only  in  later 
days  she  stands  in  her  own  right,  upon  the 
foreground  of  the  scene.  The  Angelus  has 
interpreted  the  better  times  aright.  The  sol- 
emn evening,  the  distant  spire  from  which  the 
music  of  the  evening  thrills,  the  toil  not  yet 
completed,  and  in  the  foreground,  for  whose 
sake  the  background  is,  a  man  and  a  woman — 
a  woman  and  a  man,  with  bowed  heads  under 
the  falling  night.  Man,  woman,  and  God  are 
the  participants  in  this  solemn  scene. 

The  ancient  tragedy  must  always  lack,  be- 
cause woman  has  not  a  legitimate  place.  Her 
unjust  subordination  strikes  us  with  a  sense 
of  misproportion  we  can  not  get  rid  of.  In 
Homer's  epic,  while  for  Helen,  Trojan  and 
Greek,  between  Samos  and  Scamander,  crossed 


Shakespeare's  Women  251 

spears  in  swirl  of  battle,  Helen  has  scarce  a 
presence  or  a  voice;  and  the  parting  of  Hector 
and  Andromache  marks  the  disparity  of  man 
and  woman,  so  that  you  leave  the  pathetic 
picture  with  a  sense  of  dissatisfaction.  Not 
Rome  nor  Athens  knew  woman  as  man's  an- 
tithesis and  equal.  The  restoration  of  woman 
to  herself  and  man  was  to  belong  to  the  mir- 
acle Jesus  wrought  for  all  the  world. 

Singular  how  long  it  took  men  to  learn  the 
painting  of  a  woman's  face !  The  Greek  ideal 
woman  was  Juno,  or  Venus,  or  Phryne. 
Homer  tells  us  of  the  "ox-eyed  Juno."  The 
perfect  bust,  figure,  face,  the  outline  faultless, 
the  eyes  as  dreamy  as  an  Indian  summer  after- 
noon,— these  were  the  symptoms  of  a  woman's 
beauty  as  the  Greek  artist  hewed  her  from 
the  marble  or  made  her  glow  on  canvas.  The 
Venus  of  Milo  is  illustrative — a  faultless  form, 
a  face  carved  by  beauty's  perfect  rule,  and  yet 
a  soulless  face.  That  was  Greek  misconcep- 
tion of  womanhood.  She  had  no  soul;  hers 
was  a  sensuous  beauty.  yEnone,  deserted  on 
Ida's  mountain,  weeping  for  her  Paris,  not 
less  nor  more,  is  all  Greek  poesy  can  give. 
It  was  the  Madonna  taught  the  artist  a  new 
and    right    ideal    of    woman's    face,    and    so 


252  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

the  world  a  new  idea  of  woman.  The  dreamer 
painted  her  again,  again,  again.  Each  effort 
was  an  imperceptible  advance.  No  Venus 
form  will  prove  adequate  for  Mary's  immortal 
beauty.  Venus  had  a  lover,  Alary  had  a  babe; 
and  there  was  the  necessary  intuition  that  this 
woman,  this  Mary,  would  not  simply  be  a  per- 
fect form,  with  Oriental  richness  flooding 
brow  and  cheek,  for  she  was  groping  after  the 
invisible,  she  was  feeling  after  God;  and  at 
the  last  the  mediaeval  masters  found  the  se- 
cret, and  painted  woman  with  a  soul.  And 
from  that  day  the  world's  idea  of  a  woman's 
beauty  has  been  revolutionized.  No  dryad 
on  the  mountain,  nor  nereid  in  the  laughing 
sea,  nor  a  Diana  at  the  chase  with  quiver  and 
with  bow,  in  queenly  grace  like  marble  glow- 
ing with  the  tints  of  life,  but  woman,  beautiful, 
spirituelle,  yet  human. 

And  with  this  idea  the  largest  art  must  deal. 
There  is  a  sense  of  lack  in  Antigone;  there  is 
no  sense  of  lack  in  Robert  Browning's  Co- 
lombe.  In  the  old-time  figure  there  is  imma- 
turity; in  the  recent  face  and  form  there  is 
maturity  and  unconscious  queenliness.  And 
with  the  interpretation  of  woman  as  thus  con- 
ceived, every  poet,  whether  in  prose  or  verse^ 


Shakespeare's  Women  253 

has  to  do.  It  seems  his  necessary  calling. 
Dante  and  Petrarch  have  heard  the  voice 
whose  music  was  sweeter  than  siren's  song, 
and  Beatrice  and  Laura  are  earnests  of  a  right 
and  therefore  high  conception  of  regenerate 
womanhood.  And  we  must  know  how 
crowded  is  the  Pantheon  of  modern  literature 
with  woman's  figures.  Each  genius  must  at- 
tempt this  subtle  analysis.  Dickens  has  in 
the  main  made  his  women  weak.  With  the 
-exception  of  Little  Dorrit  and  Agnes,  you  will 
scarcely  call  to  mind  a  magnetic  woman  in  all 
that  company  of  female  portraitures — children 
of  a  fertile  imagination.  Thackeray's  good  wo- 
men are  weak,  or  at  most  not  strong;  his  strong 
women  are  wicked.  Becky  Sharp  has  few 
equals  as  a  delineation — more  the  pity,  she  is  so 
bad.  How  to  be  deplored  that  Colonel  New- 
corae  and  Henry  Esmond  have  not  women  of 
kindred  nobility  and  strength.  In  Mary  Collett 
and  Constance,  Shorthouse  has  given  us  with 
lavish  generosity.  George  Eliot  has  in  Mag- 
gie Tulliver  and  Romola  served  her  kind  only 
less  essentially  than  in  Adam  Bede  and  Daniel 
Deronda.  Hawthorne's  Hester  Prynne  must 
remain  one  of  the  triumphs  of  romancist's 
power,  and  stand  a  protest  of  living  strength 


254  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

and  nobility  to  poor,  nervous  Arthur  Dimmes- 
dale.  Tolstoi's  Anna  Karenina  has  not  been 
excelled  in  audacious  attempt  at  portrayal  of 
woman's  passion  in  a  hundred  years.  As  a 
rule,  Hall  Caine's  women  have  not  the 
strength  his  men  possess.  Tennyson  has  been 
lavish  in  his  contribution  to  the  literature  of 
womanhood.  yEnone,  Mariana,  Enid,  Guine- 
vere, Annie,  Elaine,  the  Princess,  Godiva, 
Eleanore, — this  is  no  simple  list  of  names,  but 
rather  a  collection  of  portraits  which  Sir 
Joshua  Reynolds  had  not  known  the  skill  to 
paint.  Longfellow  gave  us  Evangeline;  and 
Browning,  with  characteristic  prodigality  of 
genius,  which  minds  us  of  the  wealth  of  gifts 
the  summer  gives,  has  dowered  womanhood. 
He  is  a  realist,  and  has  given  us  good  and  bad, 
but  has  not  obscured  goodness  with  evil.  Eve- 
lyn Hope,  Mildred,  Pippa,  Pompilia,  Colombe, 
Fatima, — these  are  among  the  voices  for 
whose  words  the  poet  makes  a  silence.  Ed- 
mund Spenser  hath  left  us  Una,  the  poet's 
dream  of  purity  in  an  age  impure. 

But  what  of  Shakespeare's  women?  Has 
the  essayist  forgotten  them?  Is  this  pre- 
lude? No,  rather  this  is  an  integral  section 
of  the  discussion,  and  not  irrelevant  matter. 


Shakespeare's  "Women  255 

All  pictures  have  background.  All  discussion 
has  relations.  Shakespeare's  work  must  stand 
in  contact  with  the  work  of  others.  A  poet 
once  having  given  his  dreaming  to  the  world 
has  no  power  to  slay  his  progeny.  The  cre- 
ations of  his  fancy  will  live  for  centuries  after 
the  poet's  burial;  and  the  product  of  any  gen- 
ius must  stand  beside  the  product  of  all  gen- 
ius. There  is  no  isolation  here.  All  vital  liter- 
ature, like  shipwrecked  king,  prince,  duke, 
courtiers,  and  sailors  in  "The  Tempest,"  tend 
toward  a  single  point,  and  there  hold  convo- 
cation. Time  has  no  place  in  such  regal  gath- 
ering. The  earliest  writings  are  read  by  the 
light  of  the  latest  dawn;  and  Shakespeare's 
creations  must  stand  alongside  the  achieve- 
ment of  all  centuries  which  preceded  him.  He 
is  in  the  mesh,  inextricably  woven.  And  be- 
sides this,  there  is  in  him  an  anachronism  neces- 
sary and  apparent.  The  flavor  of  an  age  will 
cling  to  all  a  poet's  creation.  He  sees  the  world, 
but  through  the  air  which  surrounds  him.  In 
consequence,  a  modern  poet's  portrait  of  a 
Grecian  woman  is  not  altogether  accurate. 
She  is  colored  with  hues  the  ancients  knew 
not  how  to  mix.  This  is  in  particular  true  of 
notions  of  women.    Shakespeare's  women  are 


256  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

resultants  of  sixteen  Christian  centuries.  They 
are  not  statues,  they  are  not  bovine-eyed,  they 
are  not  attendants,  but  equals,  of  man. 
Shakespeare  is  not  aware  that  the  unconscious 
attitude  of  his  women  is  redolent  of  the  Christ 
elevation  of  the  sex.  His  Cressida,  in  her 
flavor  of  womanhood,  belongs  not  to  the  age 
of  Priam,  king  of  Troy,  but  to  the  age  of  Eliz- 
abeth, queen  of  England. 

It  is  Shakespeare's  triumph  that  his  actors 
live,  and  act  because  they  live.  They  are  not 
puppets,  nor  yet  are  they  powdered  sem- 
blances. We  had  rather  doubt  the  personality 
and  power  of  Napoleon  than  the  personality 
and  power  of  Hamlet.  That  shadow  at  Elsi- 
nore,  through  which  a  dagger  might  be 
plunged,  and  not  a  drop  of  blood  be  let,  is 
more  substantial  than  Napoleon  with  the 
Lombard's  iron  crown  encircling  his  brow. 
Shakespeare's  women  are  alive.  Their  voices 
are  articulate  joy  or  despair.  Titania  coddling 
the  poor  mechanic,  Bottom,  so  blind  she  is 
with  love,  holds  not  a  hint  of  fiction,  but  seems 
fact  hard  as  the  core  of  granite  hills.  Ariel 
seems  scarce  a  myth.  But  if  the  fairies  seem 
substantial,  what  crimson  blood  will  tinge  the 
cheek,  make  ruddy  the  lip,  and  thrill  the  frame 


Shakespeare's  "Women  257 

of  mortals  with  bounding  and  tumultuous  life! 
Assembled  here  upon  this  tessellated  pavement 
and  under  the  gorgeous  roof  of  Shakespeare's 
creation,  see  our  pageant:  Hermia,  Miranda, 
Helena,  Julia,  Sylvia,  Francisca,  Mistress 
Ford,  Margaret,  Dame  Quickly,  Adriana, 
Hero,  Mariana,  Beatrice,  Rosaline,  Jessica, 
Katharine,  Rosalind,  Olivia,  Katharine  the 
Shrew,  Viola,  Hermione,  Perdita,  Constance, 
Lady  Percy,  Volumnia,  Virginia,  Juliet,  Lady 
Macbeth,  Cleopatra,  Octavia,  Portia,  Ger- 
trude, Ophelia,  Emilia,  Desdemona,  Imogen, 
and — but  why  prolong  the  list?  The  room 
seems  crowded  even  now,  and  through  the 
open  door  I  see  them  coming  still,  an  appar- 
ently interminable  procession.  How  strange 
a  company  this  is!  We  shall  not  see  its  like 
again.  Trojan,  Greek,  Roman,  Venetian,  II- 
lyrian,  Sicilian,  French,  Goth,  and  Jew — but 
women  all,  with  but  one  speech,  and  that  of 
woman.  But  how  strange  a  company!  The 
queen  is  here,  the  princess,  the  lady,  the  maid, 
the  life  as  spotless  as  the  lily,  the  hand  all 
stained  with  blood;  the  wench,  garrulous  and 
foul;  the  shrew,  the  heart  of  lust,  shameless 
ingratitude,  beautiful  filial  devotion,  wifely 
fidelity,   maternal   love,   shrewdness,    unques- 

17 


258  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

tioning  trust,  ambition  towering  like  a  moun- 
tain, grief  that  will  not  be  assuaged,  love  that 
thinks  it  but  a  trivial  thing  to  die,  heroisms 
framed  to  make  life  magnificent,  littleness 
which  brings  blush  to  cheek  and  forehead,  the 
bold  wanton,  the  modesty  as  sweet  as  the  J 
blooming  of  violets  in  the  woods,  virginhood,  / 
wifehood,  maternity,  penury,  plenty,  affluence,/ 
regnant  queen,  banishment  and  solitude,  each 
day  a  living  fear,  each  night  a  nightmare,  or 
rest  and  quiet  like  a  sky  at  night, — all  are  here; 
and  the  amazement  of  it  all  is,  one  artist  is  the 
creator  of  all  this  motley,  marvelous  company. 
These  are  types,  but  types  of  the  race. 
Shakespeare  has  taken  us  so  that,  as  within  a 
temple,  we  may  look  against  the  light,  and  see 
the  arabesques  of  beauty.  This  is  genius  in 
the  delineation  of  character,  most  of  all  of  wo- 
man's character.  We  can  not  comprehend  a 
woman's  doings  by  seeing  the  acts.  We  must 
be  imported,  must  become  central  in  the  life 
of  which  the  acts  are  peripheral.  Thus,  and 
thus  only,  do  we  catch  the  movement  of  the 
spirit.  Here  we  note  the  fascination  of  art 
in  Shakespeare's  exhibit  of  feminine  character. 
We  seem  not  to  be  spectators.  The  spectator 
looks  on;  in  Shakespeare  we  take  part.     The 


Shakespeare's  Women  259 

doings  of  the  actors  seem  as  native  to  them 
as  shadows  to  the  hills.  Its  rationale  is 
apparent.  That  Lady  Macbeth  had  done 
as  she  is  represented  is  axiomatic,  so  com- 
pletely has  Shakespeare's  genius  taken  us  cap- 
tive. We  become  so  en  rapport  with  the  actor 
as  that  a  different  course  of  conduct  seems 
unimaginable.  Then  these  women  are  wo- 
men; they  are  natural,  not  mechanical.  They 
are  individual;  their  identity  is  like  that  of 
morning  and  the  sky.  Shakespeare  does  not 
duplicate.  Study  an  artist's  canvas,  and  you 
will  likely  find  the  signs  of  a  Corot,  Millais, 
or  Inness.  They  are  much  as  the  painter  de- 
scribed in  Armorelle  of  Lyonesse,  who  had 
many  canvases  but  a  single  face,  with  the  sea 
always  as  background  to  her  single  figure. 
But  Shakespeare  has  no  favorites.  He  can 
no  more  repeat  himself  than  nature  can.  His 
creations  are  as  distinct,  personal,  and  conso- 
nant as  if  they  had  grown.  He  seems  as  an 
improvisatrice,  who  can  not  reproduce  a  given 
extemporization,  seeing  it  has  gone  from  her. 
Here  is  boundless  fertility  of  creation.  Lov- 
ers and  lovers  there  are  among  his  lovely 
women,  but  they  are  not  echoes.  Each  is  as 
certainly  a  voice  with  pitch,   cadence,   indi- 


260  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

vidual   charm,   as   any   voice   you  can  recall 
among  the  dearest  your  ears  have  heard. 

We  must  study  in  masses.  The  necessary 
brevity  of  this  article  precludes  extended  por- 
traiture. Individual  characterization  is  not 
possible,  but  we  may  take  classes  and  study 
them  as  a  painter  his  cloud  effects.  So  call  up 
some  lovers  among  these  women  gathered 
under  Shakespeare's  roof.  Goneril,  Miranda, 
Ophelia,  Jessica,  Juliet,  Cleopatra,  Octavia, 
Desdemona,  Imogen.  Each  is  distinct  and 
individual.  They  are  not  simply  different 
names,  but  different  people.  You  find  no 
difficulty  in  distinguishing  them,  as  with  the 
two  Dromios,  in  "The  Comedy  of  Errors." 
Each  stands  out  distinct,  like  a  mountain 
against  the  sky;  and  of  each  we  feel  that  she 
is  adequate;  and  when  you  see  a  woman  lov- 
ing, you  will  find  her  prototype  among  Shake- 
speare's womenkind.  Allow  a  hasty  and  im- 
perfect characterization  of  those  whose  names 
are  written  here.  Goneril,  unchaste,  traitor  to 
husband  and  father,  enamored  of  a  braggart 
and  villain,  who  is  no  more  true  to  her  than 
she  is  to  others;  Goneril,  flushed  with  the 
fever  of  passion,  knowing  how  to  love  with  a 
heart   of   fire, — she   is   as   Swanhild    in    Eric 


Shakespeare's  Women  26 1 

Bright-eyes,  whose  character  you  deplore,  but 
for  whose  love  you  feel  compassion.  Miranda 
is  pure  as  the  white  cloud,  drifting  high  in  the 
blue  summer  skies.  Leal  she  is,  as  day  to 
dawn.  Being  love,  pure,  sweet,  unquestioned, 
she  is  fidelity  embodied.  Ophelia  loved,  striv- 
ing against  love,  filled  with  doubt  of  Hamlet 
where  doubt  had  no  occasion,  and,  maddening, 
went  love-lorn  to  her  death.  Jessica  is  love- 
engrossed,  hearing  naught  besides  Lorenzo's 
poet  eloquence: 

"How  sweet  the  moonlight  sleeps  upon  this  bank! 
Here  will  we  sit,  and  let  the  sounds  of  music 
Creep  in  our  ears;  soft  stillness  and  the  night 
Become  the  touches  of  sweet  harmony. 
Sit,  Jessica." 

Juliet  esteems  Romeo  greater  wealth  than 
worlds.  Cleopatra  is  passion  in  peerless  beauty. 
Octavia  is  fidelity  of  love,  that  suffers  and 
loves  on.  Desdemona  is  love  faithful  as  stars, 
misjudged,  but  only  loyal  still;  and  her  plead- 
ings with  Othello  for  but  another  day  of  life 
are  among  the  voices  of  tragedy  which  never 
hush.  Imogen  is  love  that  believes,  and  loves, 
and  keeps  the  heart  with  but  a  single  door. 
If  Leonatus  come  not,  then  is  life  bereft  in- 
deed.    Estimates  these,  but  estimates  that  fall 


262  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

short  of  conveying  the  idea  of  character.  The 
subtle  but  incommunicable  beauty  we  can  no 
more  rehearse  than  describe  the  dawning  of 
the  day. 

Woman  is  capable  of  extremes  of  nobility 
or  evil.  Regan,  Tamora,  Lady  Macbeth,  dis- 
close Shakespeare's  knowledge  of  the  deprav- 
ity possible  to  woman's  nature.  Regan  is  in- 
gratitude. Tamora  is  the  Iago  of  Shake- 
speare's women.  Lady  Macbeth  is  the  woman 
of  the  world,  who  will  bear  no  obstacle  be- 
tween her  and  the  coveted  goal.  This  power  of 
a  woman  for  evil  has  no  more  potent  repre- 
sentative in  fiction  than  this  queen,  with  the 
ineradicable  bloodstains  on  her  hands.  Queen 
Gertrude  was  weak  rather  than  vicious;  and 
is  a  nonpareil  study  in  vacillating  woman- 
hood. Constance  stands  for  mother-love, 
sleepless,  untiring;  Cordelia  for  daughterly 
self-sacrifice  and  devotion,  so  beautiful  that, 
long  as  crazed  Lear  tears  his  white  locks  in 
the  dark  night  of  storm,  there  will  Cordelia 
stand  the  symbol  of  fidelity,  as  true  as  heaven. 

One  phase  of  woman's  strength  Shake- 
speare did  not  portray;  one,  too,  which  had 
given  room  for  all  that  prodigality  of  power  this 
arch-genius  of  our  world  possessed.     I  refer 


Shakespeare's  Women  263 

to  the  religious  spirit.  Woman  is  essentially 
devout.  She  feels  the  secret  of  the  Divine. 
She  is  a  worshiper,  and  women  are  always 
chief  among  the  devotees  at  any  altar.  Devo- 
tion to  God  is  the  noblest  passion  of  the  soul. 
It  leads  to  unapproachable  heights  of  hero- 
ism and  purity;  and  had  this  master  painted 
womanhood  beneath  the  shadow  of  Christ's 
cross,  he  had  completed  the  circle  of  human 
life. 

Shakespeare  has  given  us  the  world.  The 
heart  of  man  and  woman  alike  he  reads  as  if 
an  open  book  before  his  eyes.  And  it  is  in- 
spiring to  recall  that  he  has  left  us  a  gallery 
of  noble  women, 

"Whose  loveliness  increases 
And  can  never  pass  to  nothingness." 

He  has  given  us  the  bawd,  the  wanton,  the 
frozen  heart,  the  cruel  and  inexorable  will, 
the  weak,  vacillating  virtue, — all  these  plague- 
spots  he  has  seen  and  pictured.  He  saw  all, 
painted  all.  He  was  faithful  as  the  sun  in 
taking  pictures.  And  in  a  former  day  I  have 
wished  Shakespeare  had  not  given  us  Falstaff 
and  Mistress  Quickly,  but  now  I  am  glad  for 
all.     The  exhaustless  fertility  of  resource  is 


264  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

evidenced  in  this,  as  in  no  other  way.  Shake- 
speare saw  the  abysms  of  shame  as  well  as  the 
tall  hills  of  grace  and  purity,  and  portrayed  all. 
Woman  is  wicked  as  well  as  virtuous;  and  he 
who  would  glass  her  for  others'  eyes  must  not 
evade  this  unsavory  portraiture.  It  is  a  false 
psychology  as  well  as  ethics,  which  denies  the 
evil.  We  can  not  abolish  sin  by  bald  declara- 
tion. But  this  Shakespeare  does;  he  leaves, 
the  impression  that  woman  wicked  is  woman 
abnormal.  He  gives  holy  intimation  that  wo- 
man normal  is  woman  noble,  and  so  leaves  us. 
enamored  with  womanhood.  This  is  a  major 
service  for  manhood,  because  historically  a 
high  estimate  of  woman  is  a  necessary  ante- 
cedent to  an  exalted  manliness  in  either  indi- 
vidual or  race. 

In  one  of  his  sonnets,  Shakespeare  says: 

"Full  many  a  glorious  morning  have  I  seen 

Flatter  the  mountain-top  with  sovereign  eye, 
Kissing  with  golden  face  the  meadows  green, 
Gilding  pale  streams  with  heavenly  alchemy." 

And  when  a  study  of  Shakespeare's  women 
is  concluded,  it  leaves  a  sense  as  of  such  im- 
mortal morning  on  our  spirits.  We  have  up- 
lift, vision,  help. 


The  Deserted  Village 

This  is  Oliver  Goldsmith's  chief  literary 
merit — he  helped  to  bring  poetry  back  to  it- 
self. Epochs  of  poetry  are  like  dynasties  of 
kings.  Their  genius  dissipates.  Strength 
gives  place  to  weakness.  With  Pope  and 
Dryden  poetry  had  become  artificial.  Those 
poets  were  masters  of  rhyme  and  movement. 
Pope's  verse  was  as  the  billow's  rock,  save  that 
each  couplet  gave  the  identical  beat  of  its  pre- 
decessor. Variety  ceased  to  have  a  place.  Nor 
was  this  the  only  or  chief  fault.  These  writers 
had  immured  poetry  in  palaces.  Parnassus 
had  ceased  to  be  a  mountain,  and  had  come 
to  be  a  lady's  boudoir  or  a  king's  antecham- 
ber. Clearly  this  would  dry  up  the  saps  of 
inspiration.  Poetry  belongs  under  the  open 
sky,  beside  the  momentous  sea,  and  in  the 
solemn  silences  of  night-time  and  the  stars,  or 
with  the  tragedy  and  destiny  of  souls.  These 
things  are  worthy.  The  tawdry  tinsel  of  court- 
life  affords  no  sufficient  theme  for  poetry.  It 
may  suffice  for  the  poetaster,  but  will  not  sat- 
isfy the  poet.    Goldsmith,  living  in  the  literary 

265 


266  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

era  following  the  supremacy  of  Pope,  found 
himself  in  the  ebb-tide  of  that  method.  The 
tide  was  moving,  but  not  passed  out.  It 
lapped  the  sands,  and  trembled  for  departure. 
In  the  age  lorded  over  by  that  rugged  genius, 
Dr.  Johnson,  the  influence  of  Addison,  Pope, 
and  Dryden  was  still  potent,  and  all  but  om- 
nipotent. 

Ragged  and  rugged  as  was  the  strength  of 
Boswell's  hero,  he  hewed  no  path  for  his  own 
feet.  His  prose  is  manufactured.  It  has  no 
distinct  personality.  It  passes  credence  that 
such  a  man  as  we  know  Johnson  to  have  been 
would  tolerate  the  bondage  of  mere  nicety. 
Yet  in  that  style  he  wrote,  though  his  spirit 
must  have  been  a  constant  rebel  against  its 
narrowness;  and  "Lives  of  the  Poets"  and 
"Rasselas"  are  written  in  such  balanced  sen- 
tences as  present  us  a  dignified  contribution 
to  the  Addisonian  style.  In  the  "Lives  of  the 
Poets,"  not  Milton  is  the  hero,  but  a  Dryden 
or  a  Pope.  This  seems  incredible,  yet  is 
simply  true.  Not  might,  but  method,  was  the 
gauge  of  merit  in  that  dead  day. 

And  into  such  a  literary  inheritance  Gold- 
smith came.  He  was  gambler,  dandy,  baccha- 
nal; he  was  idle,  desultory  in  study  and  in 


The  Deserted  Village  267 

movements;  he  was  strolling  minstrel,  earn- 
ing- a  doubtful  crust  from  peasants  with  his 
flute;  he  was  consecutively  student  of  law, 
theology,  medicine;  he  was  tutor  in  a  gentle- 
man's family,  then  usher  in  a  school,  then 
druggist's  clerk,  then  strolling  player,  then 
beggar,  and  a  failure  in  all  save  dissipation. 
Who  could  well  conceive  a  more  unsavory 
life?  A  vagabond  was  Goldsmith;  and  a  vaga- 
bond in  propensions  he  remained  until  he 
died.  But  after  a  fashion  he  came  to  himself 
at  last.  He  found  his  powers.  His  weak- 
nesses clung  to  him  as  affectionately  as  his 
homeliness,  and  at  length  brought  him  to  his 
grave.  But  Goldsmith  was  no  martyr,  rather 
the  victim  of  his  own  follies.  An  egregious 
blunderer  his  whole  life  through,  he  was  lucid 
only  in  writing.  His  "Vicar  of  Wakefield" 
is  a  classic  among  novels ;  and  what  was  meant 
to  save  him  from  a  debtor's  prison,  has 
wrought  the  larger  service  of  keeping  him 
from  the  prison-house  of  oblivion. 

His  fame  as  poet  rests  on  two  poems.  Be- 
sides these,  he  wrote  scarcely  another  worthy 
bit  of  verse;  but  to  be  author  of  "The  Trav- 
eler" and  "The  Deserted  Village"  is  not  to  be 
a  plebeian,  even  in  the  royal  realm  of  poetry. 


26S  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

Who  speaks  of  "The  Deserted  Village"  intelli- 
gently, must  approach  it  in  this  method.  The 
"Who?"  and  "What?"  always  bear  with  heavy 
weight  on  any  production.  If  we  are  to  un- 
derstand a  literary  theme,  we  must  come  to  it 
with  knowledge.  With  many  of  Robert 
Browning's  noblest  poems  we  are  completely 
in  the  dark,  if  we  be  not  furnished  with  an 
explanatory  clause.  When  this  is  supplied, 
the  poem  comes  to  be  a  revelation.  This  word 
of  explanation,  while  not  so  necessary  in  the 
case  of  "The  Deserted  Village,"  is  still  a  re- 
quisite for  its  best  understanding.  In  it  Gold- 
smith's service  to  English  poetry  becomes  ap- 
parent. It  is  a  long  way  from  the  "Rape  of 
the  Lock"  to  "The  Deserted  Village;"  and  in 
this  contribution  we  have  the  first  declaration 
for  the  natural  as  contradistinguished  from 
the  artificial.  In  other  words,  in  this  poem  we 
are  coming  out  under  the  open  sky  once  more; 
and  poetry  has  ceased  to  be  apathetic,  and  has 
found  again  the  cunning  of  fingering  the  stops 
of  the  lute  of  life.  The  poem  is  open  to  criti- 
cism on  the  ground  of  congruity.  It  is  incon- 
gruous. The  village  described  is  English;  but 
the  eviction  described  is  Irish.  Nor  is  the 
nightingale  a  bird  that  sings  in  Ireland  at  all„ 


The  Deserted  Village  269 

though  represented  as  making  its  plaint  over 
desolated  Auburn.  Besides  this,  the  political 
philosophy  is  erroneous,  as  has  often  been 
pointed  out.  Commerce,  with  its  postulate  of 
wealth,  is  not  a  hurt,  but  a  help.  These  criti- 
cisms are  just,  and  a  critique  of  the  poem  may 
not  pass  them  by  in  silence. 

Allowing  the  criticisms  to  be  admissible, 
there  is  a  larger  truth;  and  it  is  this:  The  poem, 
as  a  whole,  is  a  delight.  Its  immediate  suc- 
cess was  phenomenal.  "The  Traveler"  had 
prepared  the  way  for  "The  Deserted  Village;" 
and  Irving,  in  his  "Life  of  Goldsmith,"  ob- 
serves, "Its  sale  was  instantaneous  and  im- 
mense." Repeated  editions  were  called  for 
within  a  few  days.  There  was  a  hungry  public ; 
and  the  heart-element  in  the  tale  was  satisfy- 
ing. "The  Traveler"  is  the  more  perfect  poem; 
"The  Deserted  Village"  the  more  popular  one. 
The  former  was  philosophic;  the  latter  was 
domestic;  and  the  same  causes  which  have 
conduced  to  the  popularity  of  Ian  Maclaren, 
Barrie,  and  Thomas  Nelson  Page  wrought  in 
behalf  of  "The  Deserted  Village." 

In  versification,  the  style  was  that  of  Pope. 
The  motif  was  as  foreign  to  Pope  as  meadows 
fresh  with  flowers  and  grass  and  mosses,  to  the 


270  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

desert  blistered  in  the  sun.  In  other  words, 
in  form  Goldsmith  was  still  under  the  domi- 
nancy  of  the  late  literary  autocrat ;  but  in  spirit 
he  had  shown  himself  a  leader,  and  had  been 
a  helper  in  bringing  English  poetry  back  unto 
its  own.  "The  Deserted  Village"  is  pastoral 
poetry;  and  preludes  a  century  of  poetry  in 
which  no  element  of  strength,  grace,  natural- 
ness, or  beauty  was  wanting. 

The  home  sentiment  is  the  affluent  thought 
of  the  poem.  To  that,  attribute  the  tenacious 
hold  these  words  have  had  on  the  heart  and 
memory  of  the  English-speaking  world.  The 
Saxon  is  leal  to  hearth  and  native  land.  The 
potent  element  in  "Evangeline"  is  the  grip  on 
our  sympathies  gained  by  the  expatriation  of 
the  Acadians.  We  revolt  against  the  tyranny 
and  inhumanity.  The  same  fact  with  a  differ- 
ent setting  is  presented  in  'The  Deserted  Vil- 
lage."   Thus  runs  the  tale:  Where  once  stood 

"Sweet  Auburn,  loveliest  village  of  the  plain," 

in  quietude,  plenty,  beauty,  joy;  where  once 
rang  the  laughter  of  merrymaking,  and  stood 
the  home,  the  genial  inn,  the  village  preacher's 
modest  mansion,  the  school-house  with  mem- 


The  Deserted  Village  27 1 

ories  of  ferule  and  fun,  now  desolation  saddens 
all  the  scene. 

"No  more  the  grassy  brook  reflects  the  day, 
But  choked  with  sedges  works  its  weedy  way;" 

and  the  cause  is  the  eviction  of  tenants  by  a 
proprietor,  that  he  might  inclose  the  farms 
in  his  own  private  domain.  Such  the  story  of 
"The  Deserted  Village;"  and  pathetic  it  is. 
It  touches  the  sentiments;  and  Goldsmith 
makes  this  the  opportunity  for  inveighing 
against  luxury  that  grows  with  wealth,  and 
wealth  that  grows  with  commerce. 

Better  to  lay  the  purposed  moral  aside,  and 
forget  the  intent  of  the  poet.  The  world  has 
found  its  chief  concern  in  the  unaffected  grace 
and  pathos  with  which  home-life  and  heart-life 
have  been  depicted.  The  case  becomes  our 
own.  We  turn  with  fondness  at  the  heart,  and 
tears  in  the  eyes  toward  the  home  of  childhood. 
The  tenacity  of  affection  with  which  renters 
in  the  Old  World  cling  to  the  farm  on  which 
generations  of  a  single  name  have  grown,  until 
they  seem  rooted  to  the  soil  like  the  hawthorn, 
can  not  be  appreciated  in  our  newer  continent, 
where   domestic    life   dawned    but   yesterday. 


272  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

Yet  are  childhood's  remembrances  the  same 
with  all  of  us.  Each  heart  turns  gladly 
back  to  the  old  home;  and  he  has  looked  on 
age  with  unpardonable  indifference  who  has 
not  noted  now,  as  men  grow  older,  the  heart 
clings  more  lovingly  to  the  old  home,  to  the 
old  memories,  to  the  old  paths.  This  is  the 
major  fascination  of  "The  Deserted  Village." 
The  verse  runs  quiet,  like  some  silent  river 
drowsing  toward  a  not  distant  sea.  We  drift 
upon  it.  The  story  touches  our  better  mem- 
ories and  our  better  natures;  and  it  seems  safe 
to  become  prophetic  in  declaring  that  no  day 
will  dawn  when  those  who  read  English  liter- 
ature will  pass  "The  Deserted  Village"  without 
tenderness  and  tears. 


George  Eliot  as  Novelist 

Anglo-Saxon  literature  has  made  surpris- 
ing revelations  of  power.  Coming  late,  when 
all  the  lists  seemed  filled,  it  yet  made  for  itself 
room.  It  was  as  the  black  knight  in  "Ivan- 
hoe,"  unexpected;  and  once  entered  the  lists, 
its  powers,  as  his,  were  unexploited,  and  the 
disclosure  of  them  came  as  the  discovery  of  a 
new  constellation.  No  form  of  literature  but 
has  been  attempted  by  this  race.  Each  seemed 
a  challenge.  Romance  poetry, — who  like  Ed- 
mund Spenser?  The  epic, — has  not  blind  Mil- 
ton become  a  chief  musician  like  blind  Homer? 
Lyric  poetry, — have  we  not  that  rare  lyrist, 
Alfred  Tennyson?  And  in  drama,  Shakespeare 
answers  the  challenge  of  ^Eschylus,  and  takes 
the  laurel  from  that  gray  head,  and  puts  it  on 
his  own  ruddy  locks.  Prose  has  received  no 
nobler  contributions  than  those  of  Hooker, 
Milton,  Burke. 

The  audacity  of  genius  has  characterized 
these  literary  attempts.  Nothing  has  daunted 
this  new  knight.  Not  Launcelot  was  so  incon- 
querable  in  the  lists.     The   Greek,   with  his 

18  273 


274  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

affluence  of  genius,  had  wrought  in  every  de- 
partment of  letters  save  the  novel.  He  wrote 
fiction  in  drama,  or  epic,  or  narrative  poem. 
These  were  'Tales  of  the  Wayside  Inn,"  or 
oftener  of  court  and  camp;  yet  with  the  en- 
largement of  the  story-teller's  hearing  through 
printing,  poetry  became  too  narrow  a  path; 
and  Marlowe  and  Spenser  gave  their  pens  to 
Blackmore  and  Thackeray.  I  am  of  opinion 
that  not  since  men  listened  to  tale  in  Arab's 
tent  by  fountain-side  under  the  stars,  has  im- 
agination been  so  universally  eager  for  a  voice 
as  now.  There  have  been  eras  when  the  fancy 
was  wilder,  when  the  world  seemed  unhindered 
to  the  shore  of  the  remotest  sea,  when  the  im- 
agination ran  more  readily  and  easily  to  the 
extravagant;  but  never  a  time  when  chaste  and 
vivid  imagination  could  boast  such  constitu- 
ency as  now.  Men  would  have  the  prose  of 
life  lapse  into  poetry,  as  the  quiet  brook  into 
music  of  waterfall.  They  refuse  to  be  held  at 
the  mill  of  toil,  and  are  as  impatient  of  fetters 
as  a  king's  son  in  chains.  The  lordlier  life 
within  must  have  speech.  Spirit  will  dream, 
and  ask  another  how  to  dream.  Love  whis- 
pers in  every  ear.  Men,  women,  youth,  age — 
love    kisses    the    sleeping   lips    of    each,    and 


George  Eliot  as  Novelist  275 

thrills  them  to  an  awakening.  Man  was 
never  more  conscious  of  heart-hunger  than 
now;  and  fiction  is  an  answer  to  this  cry  for 
bread. 

The  novel  is  the  certain  sign  that  we  are 
not  lapsed  into  commercial  serfdom.  The  de- 
mand for  fiction  is  a  good  sign.  Let  us  not 
imagine  otherwise.  Prurient  stones,  in  them- 
selves ill  omens,  are  still  an  evidence  of  this 
passion  for  imagination.  They  constitute  a 
misapplication  of  a  divine  power.  The  what 
we  see  and  are  will  not  suffice.  To  this  truth 
bear  all  novels  witness.     Ulysses  was 

"Always  roaming  with  a  hungry  heart;" 

but  Ulysses  was  brother  to  us  all.  Discover- 
ies, voyagings,  pageants,  searchings  for  the 
holy  grail,  heroisms  greater  than  Hector's, — 
all  wander  in  the  heart  like  winds  across  a 
moor.  We  stand  ready,  a  watcher  at  an  east- 
ern window,  waiting  for  the  dawn.  We  will 
not  sleep,  supposing  night  will  never  cease. 
And  fiction  touches  us  here.  It  bids  us  know 
audacities  of  love,  fidelity,  heroism,  suffering, 
are  never  dead,  and  are  not  of  yesterday.  They 
live  to-day.  They  neighbor  with  us,  and  we 
know  it  not.    The  face  of  age  masks  an  im- 


276  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

mortal  love.  That  scarred  cheek  could  tell  a 
tale  of  noble  daring  fitted  to  the  heart,  as  if  it 
were  harpstrings  smitten  by  a  harper's  hand. 
This,  I  take  it,  is  the  essential  meaning  of  the 
novel;  and  if  so,  who  could  deny  the  native 
nobility  of  this  mode  of  expression? 

And  it  has  been  the  good  fortune  of  the 
Saxon  to  produce  the  two  most  representative 
women  of  literature,  Elizabeth  Barrett  Brown- 
ing and  George  Eliot;  the  one  the  greatest 
woman  poet,  the  other  the  greatest  woman 
novelist.  While  true,  George  Eliot  wrote  a 
volume  of  poems,  as  also  one  of  essays,  she 
is  to  be  classed  neither  as  poet  nor  essayist,  but 
as  novelist.  She  came  into  an  era  rendered 
illustrious  by  Dickens  and  Thackeray.  She 
must  hang  her  light  in  a  sky  lit  with  two  suns. 
The  attempt  was  one  of  splendid  daring.  No 
single  age  had  produced  two  such  writers  of 
fiction.  Indeed,  few  names  are  to  be  men- 
tioned in  the  same  catalogue.  Scott,  Balzac, 
Hawthorne,  Hugo,  Tolstoi,  Thackeray,  Dick- 
ens,— what  hinders  this  catalogue  to  be  prac- 
tically complete?  And  into  lists  where  these 
knights  rode  came  George  Eliot.  Thackeray 
saw  and  heralded  her  genius.  Genius  will 
make  a  place,  not  find  one.     Genius  does  not 


George  Eliot  as  Novelist  277 

ask  a  constituency,  but  creates  one;  and  that 
is  better. 

I  think  it  safe  to  affirm  woman's  powers 
are  better  adapted  to  the  novel  than  any  other 
form  of  literature.  Lecky  was  doubtless  right 
in  this  observation.  Woman's  gift  of  fine  feel- 
ing and  noble  passion  can  speak  with  native 
strength  here  as  nowhere  else.  George  Eliot 
is  a  distinguished  example  of  what  a  woman 
can  do  in  this  field;  and  yet  let  it  be  remem- 
bered that  her  work  is  as  strictly  masculine 
as  her  pseudonym.  Her  writings  do  not  bear 
the  marks  of  femininity.  Had  she  kept  her 
incognito,  her  sex  would  scarcely  have  been 
guessed.  However,  in  her  undervaluation  of 
women  there  is  something  feminine.  Hetty  is 
bad;  Gwendolyn  Harleth  is  weak;  the  be- 
trothed of  Silas  Marner  is  fickle;  the  heroine 
of  Middlemarch  is  not  strong,  to  say  the  least; 
Romola,  the  chiefest  of  her  women,  is  lacking 
in  some  qualities  certainly  indigenous  to  wo- 
manhood. But  woman  is  given  a  better  part 
than  in  any  other  female  novelist. 

Eliot  does  not  write  stories,  but  rather  psy- 
chological or  social  studies.  She  has  writ- 
ten no  romance  fascinating  as  "Jane  Eyre." 
Charlotte  Bronte  knew  the  art  of  telling  a  tale 


278  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

as  George  Eliot  did  not.  In  my  conviction, 
Elizabeth  Stuart  Phelps  is  her  superior  in  the 
same  regard.  But  neither  does  Thackeray's 
strength  lie  in  story-telling.  His  story  lags 
like  a  sleepy  urchin,  though  in  "Henry  Es- 
mond" he  has  shown  us  what  powers  were  at 
his  command,  for  it  bears  us  on  as  a  wave; 
and  "Quentin  Durward"  is  not  more  magic  in 
its  movement.  Consider  our  authoress's  mer- 
its. "Midlemarch"  drowses.  "Silas  Marner" 
is  a  gem  of  pastoral  in  prose,  idyllic,  simple, 
inartificial,  sweet  as  new-mown  meadows  at 
night,  redemptive  in  tone  and  effect.  "Adam 
Bede"  is  a  repugnant  study  in  conscience  and 
religion,  never  rising  to  the  fascinating,  but 
always  running  at  high  levels  in  its  humor, 
insight,  discrimination,  and  probing  of  the 
soul.  "Felix  Holt"  is  a  study  in  labor,  and  is, 
much  as  the  purely  purpose  fiction  is  likely  to 
be,  heavy.  "Daniel  Deronda"  is,  all  in  all,  the 
most  attractive  and  enchaining  story  this  au- 
thoress has  told.  The  movement  has  a  swing 
like  a  wave,  the  love  is  contagious;  the  char- 
acter of  Gwendolyn  Harleth  is  disappoint- 
ing, but  accurate ;  Myra  artless,  attractive,  and 
compelling  interest;  Lapidoth,  an  exact  por- 
trait of  a  shameless,  debased  soul;  Mordecai 


George  Eliot  as  Novelist  279 

is  magnetic  in  his  fervor,  and  thrilling  in  his 
finer  sense  of  soul.  "Romola"  is  a  mediaeval 
romance,  catching  admirably  both  tone  and 
temper  of  the  Savonarola  era,  and  giving  a 
clear  insight  into  the  Florence  of  Lorenzo  the 
Magnificent.  The  story  told  leaves  you  in 
shadow  like  a  sky  suddenly  overcast,  but  you 
are  sure  you  have  read  a  great  book. 

Comparison  between  George  Eliot  and  Mrs. 
Humphrey  Ward  will  serve  to  bring  out  the 
qualities  of  the  former;  and  it  seems  clear 
that  the  niece  of  Matthew  Arnold  has  as  cer- 
tainly taken  Eliot  for  her  pattern  as  Dante 
did  Virgil.  The  peculiarity  of  imitation  is 
that  the  imitator  catches  the  weakness,  but  not 
the  strength  of  the  original.  Such  is  the  case 
in  this  instance.  Mrs.  Ward  apparently  aims 
at  giving  a  study,  rather  than  writing  a  story. 
She  affects  philosophy,  political  economy,  the- 
ology. She  possesses  none  of  the  story-teller's 
art.  Her  novels  are  voluminous,  tedious,  lack 
movement,  and  do  not  rivet  attention.  You 
never  become  interested  so  as  to  be  loath  to 
lay  the  volume  down.  "Robert  Elsmere," 
"Marcella,"  "Sir  George  Tressady,"  are  not 
commonly  interesting,  but  uncommonly  long 
and  tiresome.     They  lack  in  dramatic  power, 


280  The  Poefs  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

and  have  no  notion  of  climax.  There  is  scant 
movement,  little  color,  and  an  unpleasant  sense 
of  the  physician  who  will  insist  on  inoculat- 
ing you  irrespective  of  your  need.  She  pro- 
poses a  study;  but  those  who  propose  this  sort 
of  fiction  must  be  gifted  with  genius,  and  that 
of  a  high  order.  Thackeray  may  sermonize 
if  he  will,  because  his  rambling  utterances  are 
a  delight.  Balzac  may  give  studies,  because 
he  is  a  marvelous  photographer  of  society  con- 
ditions. Dickens  may  give  a  study  in  poverty, 
and  name  it  "Oliver  Twist,"  because  he  knows 
the  art  to  subordinate  the  purpose  to  the  move- 
ment of  the  narrative,  and  illumines  all  the 
path  with  the  light  of  that  varied  genius  which 
used  him  as  amanuensis.  So  may  George 
Eliot  give  a  study  of  domesticity  in  "Middle- 
march,"  or  of  hard  human  nature  in  "Mill 
on  the  Floss,"  because  she  is  a  great  novelist, 
because  she  has  penetrative  vision,  construct- 
ive ability,  and  consummate  grasp  of  char- 
acter. Contrast  her  work  with  Mrs.  Ward's, 
and  the  difference  is  an  unbridgeable  chasm. 
The  tragic  element  in  "Adam  Bede"  is 
growing  in  interest  to  the  close,  and  in  "Mill 
on  the  Floss"  the  scene  of  that  flood  in  whose 
mad  waters  Tom  and  Maggie  Tulliver  find  a 


George  Eliot  as  Novelist  28 1 

grave,  but  find  love,  too,  when  seeing  the 
beautiful  forgiveness  on  which  he  has  no  claim, 
Tom  cries  "Magsie!"  and  then,  locked  in  each 
other's  arms,  they  defy  death.  Such  termina- 
tion leaves  no  sense  of  lack.  The  tragedy 
is  complete,  and  the  art  which  conceived  such 
finale  is  nothing  other  than  genius.  George 
Eliot  thrills  us  with  a  sense  of  power;  and  who 
but  wishes  to  be  gripped  as  if  by  some  giant's 
hand  upon  the  shoulder?  You  will  find  noth- 
ing commonplace  about  workman  or  work. 
Belonging  to  a  brilliant  era  of  romance,  her 
star  burns  undimned.  "Adam  Bede,"  "Mill  on 
the  Floss,"  "Daniel  Deronda,"  and  "Romola" 
are  instances  of  immortal  fiction,  and  "Janet's 
Repentance"  is  a  tale  daintily  and  pathetically 
told. 

On  considering  George  Eliot's  volumes, 
certain  observations  arise  spontaneously.  One 
is,  Hers  was  a  mind  open  to  nature.  Dickens 
and  Thackeray  gave  slight  heed  to  sky  and 
field  for  their  own  sake.  Clearly  Eliot  loved 
the  fields  and  skies.  "Mill  on  the  Floss"  is 
specially  rich,  I  think,  in  tender  sayings  about 
out-of-doors.  Not  that  this  writer  has  touched 
hands  with  Blackmore;  but  that  was  not  to  be 
expected.    There  is  but  one  "Lorna  Doone." 


282  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

Such  passionate  tenderness  for  nature  comes 
to  earth  once  only  in  many  centuries.  But  in 
this  authoress,  constantly  recurring,  you  shall 
find  let  drop  words  of  love  for  the  flow  of  a 
river,  or  tint  of  cloud,  or  gracious  quiet  of  the 
evening,  or  hint  of  thinking  where  words  are 
not  articulated.  Account  this  one  strength  in 
George  Eliot. 

And  George  Eliot  has  been  declared  best 
equipped  of  her  contemporary  novelists,  and 
more  the  philosopher  than  Dickens  or  Thack- 
eray. One  thing  is  sure,  she  chose  an  ampler 
field  than  they.  You  can  not  designate  her 
patrimony,  as  you  can  theirs.  Dickens  was 
biographer  of  slum  and  middle-class  England; 
Thackeray  biographer  of  aristocratic  England; 
but  you  can  not  coin  a  phrase  which  shall  ex- 
press the  territory  pre-empted  by  George 
Eliot.  But  if  her  work-ground  were  less  ca- 
pable of  defining  than  theirs,  it  does  not  follow 
she  was  profounder.  Philosophy  is  not  so 
much  vocation  as  it  is  attribute.  To  be  scholar 
it  is  not  necessary  to  wear  cap  and  gown,  nor  to 
be  philosopher  is  it  necessary  to  say,  "I  will 
philosophize."  Who  reads  Thackeray  must 
know  that  no  acuter  philosopher  in  character 
Jived  in  his  day.    "Sartor  Resartus"  is  not  pro- 


George  Eliot  as  Novelist  283 

founder  philosphy  than  may  be  found  in 
"Barry  Lyndon"  and  "Vanity  Fair."  Eliot 
was  equipped,  but  is  no  deeper  nor  can  be 
nobler  than  may  be  found  in  "Sidney  Carton" 
and  "Henry  Esmond."  In  her  attempts  we 
observe  a  girth  of  circumference  which  ap- 
peals to  the  mind.  She  was  predisposed  to 
framing  systems.  Order  was  omnipresent  to 
her  thought.  Chaos  turned  to  cosmos  of  some 
sort  with  her;  for  she  was  hostile  to  intellectual 
debris.  In  according  her  high  rank  in  scope  of 
plan  and  in  quality  of  execution  we  may  hasten 
to  agree;  but  to  make  her  outrank  Thackeray 
and  Dickens  seems  not  to  be  warranted  by  the 
facts. 

Another  observation  is,  she  has  diversified 
her  fields.  Her  flowers  are  not  all  planted  in 
one  soil.  MacDonald  and  Black  have  one  vein. 
We  know  where  their  next  venture  will  land  its 
cargo.  This  is  not  fortunate.  The  element 
of  surprise  should  not  absent  itself  from  fic- 
tion. George  Eliot  saw  this  clearly.  She  made 
no  two  ventures  on  the  same  waters.  The  poor 
weaver,  his  pain,  and  pessimism  and  its  cure, — 
this  once,  no  more;  and  "Silas  Marner,"  most 
graceful  of  her  essays  in  fiction,  does  the  heart 
good  as  songs  of  birds  in  the  fields  of  spring. 


284  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

"Middlemarch"  and  "Mill  on  the  Floss"  are 
well  in  the  same  field,  but  with  emphasis  on 
such  diverse  traits  in  character  and  society 
as  practically  to  throw  them  into  different 
worlds.  In  one  the  grief  of  mismating  is  the 
theme;  in  the  other  the  harshness  of  character 
in  father  and  son,  and  the  sweet  tenderness  of 
a  girl's  life  breaking  through  the  one  as  a 
daisy  through  the  sod.  These  fields  were  vis- 
ited no  more.  She  was  no  Ruth  to  glean  in  a 
harvested  field,  but  rather  as  a  traveler  who 
pitches  tent  but  once  in  any  single  spot,  a 
camp-fire  burnt  to  ashes,  a  memory,  and  away  t 
"Adam  Bede"  dips  pen  into  the  woe  of  wrong. 
It  is  the  drama  of  sin,  with  shame,  sorrow,  dis- 
aster, conscience.  Not  often  has  there  been 
given  a  more  graphic  touch  than  when  Hetty 
tells  Dinah  how  she  heard  her  deserted  babe 
crying,  even  when  she  saw  it  was  no  longer 
where  she  had  hidden  it.  Seth  makes  manli- 
ness seem  a  little  taller;  Dinah  is  a  fair  picture 
as  we  see  her  yet;  Adam  stands  strong,  a  tower 
meant  for  defense;  Mrs.  Poyser's  garrulity 
sounds  in  our  ears  to  this  hour;  and  the  char- 
acters in  "Mill  on  the  Floss"  stand  out  as 
painted  by  some  master's  brush — Tom  Tulli- 
ver  like  his  father,  hard  as  flint;  the  mother 


George  Eliot  as  Novelist  285 

an  echo,  but  who,  at  the  last,  will  let  mother- 
love  speak,  and  will  go  with  Maggie  into  her 
undeserved  disgrace;  Philip,  pure,  manly, 
faithful,  suffering,  self-denying,  unforgetting; 
Stephen,  passionate  in  love  as  sweep  of  stormy 
sea, — who  will  forget  them? 

"Romola"  leaves  England  and  to-day,  and 
migrates  to  Italy  and  history.  This  is  George 
Eliot's  attempt  at  writing  the  historical  novel. 
Dickens  wrote  "Tale  of  Two  Cities;"  Thack- 
eray, "Henry  Esmond;"  Eliot,  "Romola;"  and 
they  are  worthy  of  the  era  and  the  authors. 
This  is  the  sole  novel  of  our  authoress  which 
does  not  stay  on  English  soil.  Romola  holds 
court  in  Italy.  Lorenzo  the  Magnificent,  Sa- 
vonarola, Pico  Mirandola,  Romola,  Tito  Me- 
lema,  are  the  actors,  and  each  is  worthy  of  pro- 
longed study.  The  era  is  attractive.  The  his- 
toric currents  in  those  days  were  widening  in 
such  fashion  as  had  not  been  known  since 
Rome  died.  Call  it  a  brilliant  and  wicked  age, 
and  have  done.  It  was  flooded  with  the  pas- 
sion for  scholarship  characteristic  of  the  Re- 
naissance, discoveries  awaking, — this  the  field; 
and  in  such  field  she  has  shown  herself  capable 
of  satisfying  the  imagination  and  the  historic 
and  dramatic  sense.    "Romola"  need  not  blush 


286  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

to  stand  in  the  presence  of  'Tvanhoe."  Tito 
Melema  is  a  great  portrait.  He  is  gibbeted 
forever.  His  versatile  talent;  his  lack  of  moral 
stamina;  his  feeling  his  way  toward  crime  as 
a  bather  into  cold  surf;  his  base  ingrati- 
tude, and  the  choice  of  ambition  rather  than 
Tightness;  his  fatal  decision  to  make  no  search 
for  his  foster  father,  the  appropriation  of  his 
wealth,  and  the  consequent  denial  of  him  re- 
turned, and  Melema's  murder  by  that  much 
injured  man, — these  constitute  a  study  in  in- 
gratitude not  often  paralleled  in  power,  and 
seldom  equaled  as  a  characterization.  Becky 
Sharp  and  Tito  Melema  may  make  society 
for  themselves,  since  they  are  members  of  an 
aristocracy  in  villainy  seldom  experienced. 

In  "Daniel  Deronda"  the  scene  is  shifted  to 
the  Jew,  that  most  fascinating  race  of  history. 
That  the  author  was  saturated  with  Jewish 
history  need  not  to  be  told  any  reader  of  this 
volume.  Her  step  is  of  one  who  knows  the 
path.  Daniel  Deronda  is  a  rare  creation, 
whether  considered  as  a  Jew  or  as  a  study  in 
human  kind.  A  pure  and  noble  spirit  is  a 
generous  contribution  to  literature;  and  such 
Deronda  is.  The  unconscious  power  of  him 
is  magnetic,  and  to  see  how  he  guides  Gwen- 


George  Eliot  as  Novelist  287 

dolyn  Harleth  to  her  better  womanhood  is 
inspiring,  though  to  watch  her  at  his  marriage 
and  departure  as  she  stands  hungry-hearted 
and  hungry-eyed  has  a  pathos  too  deep  for 
words.  Viewing  this  work  as  a  whole,  let  this 
be  said:  the  departure  was  a  success.  This 
study  of  the  Jew  is  of  importance  in  contem- 
porary fiction,  in  which  the  Jew  is  moving  to 
such  a  chief  place. 

Another  observation  on  Eliot  is,  her  im- 
personality. She  obscures  her  own  views. 
This  Thackeray  and  Dickens  never  did.  They 
were  always  telling  what  they  thought. 
George  Eliot  was  an  agnostic  in  philosophy, 
and  a  freelover  in  social  ethics;  but  would  any- 
body guess  the  one  or  the  other  from  her 
novels?  There  is  something  singular  here. 
In  her  romances  marriage  is  nowhere  in- 
dicted, but  on  the  converse  seems  to  be  held  in 
high  esteem.  There  is  a  contradiction  here. 
She  would  seem  to  have  been  malleable  in 
opinion,  subject  to  environing  influences. 
George  Henry  Lewes  discovered  her  to  her- 
self as  novelist,  and  exercised  a  singular  domi- 
nancy  over  her.  His  opinions  in  philosophy 
and  social  morality  were  hers;  and  whether 
she  were  conscious  to  herself  of  insincerity  in 


-  "  *  i  hi   ?  jc';    ?  -, 


»  .t. 


:-_;:  Essays 


her  affected  opinions  certain  it  is  she  nowhere 
intimates  them  in  her  novels.  In  poetry,  she 
speaks  in  her  own  proper  person ;  but  with  her 
fiction,  the  character  elaborates  itself,  and 
speaks  words  native  to  itself.  She  does  no:  -  : 
her  creations  as  venders  of  her  notions.  I 
think  George  Eliot's  work  eminently  imper- 
sonal; and  the  more  I  read,  the  more  does  this 
fact  impress  me.  And  this  is  a  rare  trait.  It 
Shakespeare's  trait,  though  in  him  it  arose 
from  the  mar.y-si^ir.ess  of  genius. 

In  t,  to  know  to  what  this  is 

attributable  is  not  easy.    Her  philosophical  self 
and  her  romanci  ere  two  persons.     In 

philosophical  moods  she  was  so  cold  ieny 

chance  to  bloom.  if  she  was  sure 

"the  times  were  crat  ::'  joint,"  then  to  her  fell 
the  task  of  ag  righ:  so  far  as  in  her  lay. 

-  jng  err-  For  righting,  as  all  the  reformers 
to  suppose  George  Eliot  to  have 
I  at  heart  the  :  her  head,  and  i    I 

:.ed  thei  tc  arraign  her  courage; 

and  to  question  her  hones:      is  to  arraign  her 
sinceri:  uch    the    Scylla    and    Cha- 

rt any  criticism  of  her  char- 
acter and  work.      Raskin   tells   his   theor 
to  this   end,   as  he  supposed,   was   he   born. 


■J-: 


:;  : 


V-i.-r.t-    Am:!:       i=    i-    it -re    :f   - 
gr: ■■  r.    ir.s:::n:       m-tinter    r|    the    • 
on  "  h::h  he      i h:e :     ::   :  . ...-  :  :  -. ::       *  a: 
'. :'     .5  :r':r:  =~    i?  Shelley  =  ::  :.;  .v.  :ar: 
.:  .".   :-:-!.-  :  ha:    ~-e:rre  Zh;:  :: 
i bherran:  :.::::.v-    ::'  ~i— :;      Lt 
ology.    and    did   not    attempt    disdptng   tbe 

-     :     :         etr.  thzurht  ar     .  ei::  :    ere 
5:  — e    h:a:u?       At   hea:    •:.:   rcai    agntft::     ;.: 
--    "  take  .:    she      as  ;  er::  :  j       I  ::  »:  ::: 
She  could  not  advocate  her  barien  : 

-  -         -lamr.     There: :  -     :"r  :    ~t  er- 
sonahty  of  her  -  nas  in 

n  to  champion  a  system  3f  thinking  to 
:h  her  heir:  cave  n:  asser.:      She 
tinctively  religious  in  her  narural  5 ;:::?::: as. 
To  doubt  this  would  make  the  interpretation 
::'  Seth  and  Mordecai  and  the      Scenes 
Oerical  Life"  in:?;.—  A  religirus  .1::: :rs- 

•     :s  her    'tetter    :::: ;  h-     A  .-;  :t- 

theory.  Buckle  and  Le    es  and  Ziot  be- 
longed to  the  same   school.     But    r::all  the 
isistenc  y  of  Buc  ivocacy  of  his  marerial- 

and  the  unhesitating  beaching  :: 
Lewes;  2nd  the  utter  absence   ::'  such 
cacy  in  Eliot's  fiction  more  than  imp 
in   spirit   of   championing  or      -        ; pinions; 

19 


290  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

and  we  can  not  refrain  from  believing  she 
doubted  the  validity  of  her  own  intellectual 
attitude.  Compare  Mrs.  Humphrey  Ward, 
who  has  religious  theories  to  vend  in  her 
shambling  "Robert  Elsmere."  Here  a  resusci- 
tated infidelity  on  the  invalidity  of  the  proof  of 
miracles  is  donated  a  coat  and  hat  and  name; 
and  the  authoress  supposes  she  has  given  a 
man.  Mrs.  Ward  and  George  Eliot  are  of  the 
same  faith;  how  explain  the  latter's  failure  in 
indoctrination,  save  on  the  theory  of  her  dis- 
trust of  her  religious  conclusions?  A  discrep- 
ancy between  the  teaching  of  the  head  and  of 
the  heart  is  not  an  infrequent  spectacle. 
George  Eliot's  example  in  social  morality  was 
unquestionably  deleterious.  The  morality  of 
marriage  and  its  essentiality  to  our  social  sys- 
tem and  order  is  too  apparent  to  need  defense. 
Heart  and  history  testify  in  its  behalf.  To  at- 
tack this  system  in  example  is  a  crime. 
George  Eliot  should  have  seen  that  while  a 
phase  of  the  marriage  laws  was  a  hurt  to  her 
individually,  they  were  still  a  society  safeguard 
and  purity's  necessity,  while  her  marriage  to 
Mr.  Cross  proves  conclusively  she  might  have 
found  nuptial  companionship  with  other  than 
George  Henry  Lewes.  As  it  was,  she  gave  the 
weight  of  her  conduct  to  a  system  to  which 


George  Eliot  as  Novelist  29 1 

she  was  in  no  true  sense  allied.  That  our  at- 
titude is  often  shaped  by  our  self-wishes  the 
instance  of  John  Milton  as  related  to  divorce 
testifies.  George  Eliot  was  better  than  her 
theories  would  lead  us  to  conclude,  and  her 
silences  in  her  fictions  are  testimonies  to  her 
consciousness   of   incertitude   and   insincerity. 

Viewing  the  author  as  related  to  her  work, 
we  must  confess  to  a  sense  of  lack.  The  large 
things  she  did,  praise  her;  but  the  larger  thing 
she  might  have  done,  upbraids  her. 

George  Eliot's  agnosticism  is  hopeless  and 
pitiful.  A  woman  without  God  is  like  a  ship 
for  which  there  is  no  sea.  She  seemed  a  vessel 
thrown  on  the  high  bar,  to  which  no  wave  ever 
comes  to  bear  it  back  into  the  deep.  From  this 
characteristic  it  follows  that  what  may  be 
named  inspirational  values  were  largely  want- 
ing in  her.  Inspiration  implies  a  sky;  and  sky 
was  what  George  Eliot  always  lacked.  Her 
face  was  plain,  her  voice  exceeding  sweet,  her 
genius  commanding,  her  vision  circumscribed, 
her  hope  dead;  and  so  she  leaves  us  with  a 
sense  of  lack,  as  if  we  looked  at  an  eagle  teth- 
ered in  a  meadow.  It  was  meant,  as  she  was 
meant,  for  the  mountain  and  the  blue  vault 
and  the  sun. 


The  Ring  and  the  Book 

"The  Ring  and  the  Book"  is  the  most 
satisfactory  poem  ever  written;  which  judg- 
ment this  paper  attempts  to  justify.  The  poem 
is  a  mediaeval  cathedral,  and  to  be  compre- 
hended must  be  given  both  a  general  and  a 
minute  survey.  We  must  estimate  a  cathe- 
dral's size,  dignity,  proportions,  style  of  archi- 
tecture, leap  of  spire,  sense  of  sublimity,  and 
hold  this  total  impression,  as  a  lake  holds 
mountains  mirrored.  We  weigh  the  mass, 
make  a  synthesis.  We  then  proceed  to  the 
study  of  details.  The  spring  of  the  arch,  effect 
of  aisle,  nave,  choir,  transept,  chapels;  the  win- 
dows, whose  storied  panes  glorify  the  light; 
the  organ,  with  sob  of  storm  and  soul,  echoing 
along  the  pillars  and  dying  in  the  arches;  the 
solemn  silence,  more  impressive  than  organ 
note, — these  constitute  an  analysis;  and  by  the 
dual  survey  we  hold  the  cathedral  a  feudatory 
of  the  mind.  "The  Ring  and  the  Book"  is  a 
Gothic  cathedral,  impressive  and  sublime.  A 
general  survey  will  reveal  certain  facts,  among 
them  these : 

The  book  is  epic  in  proportions,  containing 
292 


The  Ring  and  the  Book  293 

twenty-one  thousand  verses.  It  is  twice  the 
length  of  "Paradise  Lost,"  and  six  times  as 
long  as  ''Hamlet,"  one-sixth  longer  than 
Homer's  "Iliad,"  and  a  third  longer  than 
Dante's  "Inferno."  It  is  greater  than  the  bulk 
of  many  a  great  poet's  works.  Its  wealth  of 
thought,  eloquence,  loveliness  of  diction,  pro- 
found soul-scrutiny,  fertility  of  imagination, 
mastery  of  the  resources  of  poetry,  pregnant 
utterance,  high  ideality,  are  fitted  to  immortal- 
ity as  finger  to  the  lute.  The  book  is  very 
long,  but  none  too  long  when  studied  and 
loved.  Its  epic  length  is  due  to  its  epic  mass 
of  thought.  An  ocean's  flood  requires  an 
ocean's  bed.  Compare  "The  Ring  and  the 
Book"  with  Spenser's  "Fairie  Queen,"  and 
discover  striking  similarities.  Both  are  pure 
in  moral  tone  as  mountain  air;  both  are  medi- 
aeval in  location  and  temper;  both  catch  the 
spirit  of  knight  errantry;  both  are  dedicated 
to  holiest  uses,  the  illumination  of  the  under- 
standing, and  the  purifying  of  the  heart;  both 
delight  us  like  the  songs  of  birds  at  dawn; 
and  the  authors  of  both  are  poets  such  as  liter- 
ature has  had  few  of.  The  "Fairie  Queen"  is 
an  allegory;  "The  Ring  and  the  Book"  a  his- 
tory.   One  is  descriptive;  the  other  analytical. 


294  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

I  read  "The  Fairie  Queen"  with  growing  pas- 
sion. Edmund  Spenser  is  England's  noblest 
troubadour,  and,  aside  from  Tennyson,  most 
musical  of  English  poets.  It  were  a  sign  of 
literary  health  if  at  this  fountain,  youth  would 
drink  as  at  mountain  springs.  Spenser  charms 
as  the  sound  of  rain  upon  the  roof  at  night, 
and  is  grateful  to  the  weary  thought  as  the 
house  of  sleep  which  himself  has  described 
with  such  dreamy  imagination  and  perfect 
melody: 

"And  more  to  lulle  him  in  his  slumber  soft 

A   trickling   streame   from   high   rock   tumbling 
dovvne, 
And  ever-drizzling  raine  upon  the  loft, 

Mixt  with  a  murmuring  winde,  much  like  the 

sowne 
Of  swarming  bees,  did  cast  him  in  a  swownc. 
No  other  noyse,  nor  people's  troublous  cryes, 
As  still  are  wont  t'  annoy  the  walled  towne, 
Might  there  be  heard;  but  careless  quiet  lyes 
Wrapt  in  eternal  silence  farre  from  enemyes." 

But  comparison  will  leave  the  crown  on 
Browning.  His  is  the  philosopher's  art  set  to 
the  music  of  poetry.  His  thought  cuts  deep 
like  a  crusader's  sword.  He  digs  into  the 
soul,  and  lets  it  bleed.     All  realms  of  recent 


The  Ring  and  the  Book  295 

thinking,  hemispheres  unknown  to  Spenser, 
are  put  under  tribute.  All  are  his  vassals. 
He  pours  forth  light  as  the  sun.  The  history 
in  "The  Ring  and  the  Book"  is  mediaeval,  but 
the  thought  is  modern  as  this  noon.  Brown- 
ing's is  an  amplitude  of  genius  Spenser  did 
not  possess.  To  an  epic  narrative  he  has 
superadded  a  dramatic  penetration.  Spenser 
is  more  melodious  than  Browning;  and 
Browning  is  more  profound  than  Spenser. 

"The  Ring  and  the  Book"  is  Browning's 
masterpiece,  sustaining  the  same  relation  to 
his  multitudinous  poems  as  Hamlet  to  Shake- 
speare's remaining  dramas.  "Colombe's 
Birthday,"  "Blot  in  the  'Scutcheon,"  and 
"Pippa  Passes"  are  usually  acorded  rank  in 
point  of  finish,  delicacy,  and  dramatic  perfec- 
tion; but  they  are  brief.  They  are  half-hours 
of  sunshine;  "The  Ring  and  the  Book"  is  a 
day.  Comparison  between  an  author's  own 
efforts  is  never  absolutely  just.  Every  man 
has  his  best.  Power  is  not  steady.  Brown- 
ing's variety  of  theme  and  breadth  of  treat- 
ment afford  ample  opportunity  for  comparison 
and  criticism.  He  is  the  most  unequal  of 
poets.  And  then,  too,  the  personality  in  read- 
ers is  so  diverse.    Moods  change  an  emphasis 


296  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

of  appreciation,  as  sky  the  color  of  the  sea. 
Ourselves  are  a  variable  quantity.     The  sub- 
jective in  the  reader  will  be  as  influential  an 
element  in  choice  of  a  favorite  poem  as  the 
objective  in  the  writer.     In  criticism,   critics 
can  not  get  on  the  same  ground.    To  a  lover, 
his  love's  voice  will  be  the  sweetest  of  voices; 
and  why  quarrel  with  him?     To  ask  a  com- 
pany which  of  an  author's  poems  each  prefers 
is  stimulative,  since  there  is  thus  disclosed  this 
individuality  in  choice  to  which  reference  is 
here  made.  Browning's  lesser  dramas  are  beau- 
tiful, but  brief.     They  are  snatches  of  music 
sung  by  happy  hearts  on  happy  days;  but  "The 
Ring  and  the  Book"  is  an  oratorio.    They  are 
dedicated  to  bringing  a  single  thought  from 
bud    to    bloom.      In    "Pippa    Passes"    that 
thought  is  Conscience  regnant;  in   "Blot  in 
the  'Scutcheon,"  tarnished  virtue  has  in  itself 
no  more  a  remedy  within  itself  to  recall  its 
lost  self  than  a  faded  flower  to  recover  its 
vanished  loveliness;  in  "Colombe's  Birthday," 
the  triumph  of  love  in  a  good  woman's  heart. 
In  "The  Ring  and  the  Book"  these  themes  are 
amalgamated  as  grains  of  gold  to  form  a  ring 
for  love  to  wear  upon  its  finger.    The  weight- 
iest questions  of  life  are  discussed,  and  in  such 


The  Ring  and  the  Book  297 

satisfactory  fashion  as  makes  it  the  most  ade- 
quate poem  of  literature.  An  epic  in  twelve 
books,  a  tragedy  in  a  single  act!  For  my 
part,  I  feel  with  this  massive  poem  as  I  do  in 
watching  Niagara,  a  grave,  laughterless  de- 
light. Smiles  vanish  from  the  face  in  looking 
on  Niagara,  or  reading  "The  Ring  and  the 
Book." 

And  "The  Ring  and  the  Book"  is  unique. 
Poetry  has  not  its  like.  It  stands  solitary,  as 
a  forsaken  soldier.  What  poem  do  you  recall 
resembling  this  in  the  least?  The  tragedies  of 
^schylus,  Sophocles,  Shakespeare,  Goethe, 
have  set  no  fashion  for  it.  Contrast  any 
dramas  these  authors  have  written  with  the 
poem  discussed,  and  this  uniqueness  will  strike 
you  with  sudden  joy.  In  ^schylus's  "Pro- 
metheus Bound,"  you  are  confronted  with  con- 
tinuity in  action  and  progress  in  movement. 
Characters  rise,  speak,  pass,  or,  if  reintro- 
duced, their  coming  marks  the  lapse  of  time. 
Moments  have  swept  them  on  as  to  a  new 
stage.  Prometheus  is  chained  to  his  crag, 
and  the  crag  is  buckled  to  the  world ;  but  that 
world  has  moved.  While  we  have  listened  to 
Prometheus,  Kratos,  and  the  Oceanides,  he 
has  drawn  a  trifle  nearer  the  end  of  his  pain. 


298  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

We  are  conscious  of  progress  toward  conclu- 
sion. In  Sophocles's  "Antigone,"  the  same 
is  true.  Antigone  goes  toward  her  doom, 
sometimes  with  bowed  head  and  hindered  step 
and  slow;  sometimes  driving  swiftly  as  if  run- 
ning a  race  toward  death,  but  always  motion. 
There  is  neither  stagnation  nor  yet  movement 
in  circles,  but  progress  evident  as  day.  In 
"Faust"  is  perennial  action.  Mephistopheles, 
Faust,  Margaret, — cynical  diabolism  in  Meph- 
istopheles; in  the  others,  ambition,  love, 
temptation,  yielding,  sin,  retribution, — love 
and  conscience  in  Margaret,  and  selling  of  soul 
and  remorse  terrible  and  useless  in  Faust,  but 
action,  always  action!  Characters  run  toward 
their  doom.  Fever  is  in  the  tragedy's  pulse. 
We  feel  as  certain  events  rush  toward  a  tragic 
termination,  as  Niagara's  rapids  toward  a 
precipice.  Let  King  Lear  speak  for  Shake- 
speare's method.  Events  tend  toward  a  crisis. 
The  drift  of  seas  past  a  headland  is  not  more, 
or  so  apparent.  Goneril  and  Regan  and  Ed- 
mund; Cordelia  and  King  Lear,  old  and  ab- 
dicating his  throne;  his  misjudgment  of  Cor- 
delia, coupled  with  cruel  thoughts  and  words; 
he  is  despised  of  his  daughters;  he  gradually 
comes  to  himself,  state  and  power  gone  as 


The  Ring  and  the  Book  299 

certainly  as  color  fades  from  evening  cloud; 
his  anguish  at  heart;  his  finding  in  Cordelia 
more  than  he  had  lost  in  kingdom;  his  gray, 
blind  despair  when  on  the  stormy  moor  with 
disheveled  locks  he  walks  a  madman,  and  at 
the  last  bearing  his  dead  Cordelia  in  his  arms, 
his  life  the  passion  of  sob,  he  dies, — these  are 
currents  swift  as  swollen  mountain  torrent. 
In  all,  we  find  as  definite  motion  as  when  a 
ship  sails  along  a  coast,  and  sees  the  headlands 
slipping  behind  like  drifting  fisher's  boats. 

In  "The  Ring  and  the  Book"  the  plan  is 
diametrically  diverse.  There  is  no  movement. 
All  the  story  is  told  in  the  first  thousand 
verses;  and  twenty  thousand  verses  are  con- 
sumed in  rehearsing  a  tale  once  told.  If  there 
be  such  another  production  in  literature,  I  do 
not  know  of  it.  In  plot,  "The  Ring  and  the 
Book"  is  absolutely  unique. 

A  closing  observation  on  the  work,  as  a 
whole,  is  that  all  Browning's  characteristics 
riot  here.  He  is  as  a  herald  who,  having  flung 
aside  all  weights,  runs  his  solitary  race,  a  nude 
personality.  Here  see  his  versatility,  intellec- 
tuality, dramatic  instinct,  and  originality. 
That  a  poet  could  so  variegate  a  single  story 
as  to  tell  it  over  nine  times,  and  it  not  weary 


300  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

you,  is  sufficient  proof  of  versatility.  To  this 
add  the  exactitude  with  which  he  develops 
natures  so  variant  as  those  of  Count  Guido, 
Caponsacchi,  Pompilia,  and  the  Pope,  and 
wonder  blinds  us,  as  looking  full  in  the  sun's 
face.  His  intellectuality  is  evidenced  in  his 
grasp  on  the  strategic  nature  of  the  story;  in 
his  penetration  into  motive;  in  his  profound 
disquisition  on  contemporary  social  questions; 
in  his  practically  illimitable  command  of  apt, 
pertinent,  luminous,  and  beautifully  poetical 
illustration;  in  the  serene  sky  he  keeps,  noth- 
ing bewildered  by  the  jungle  growth  of  inter- 
acting motives  and  complications  of  argument. 
Dramatic  here,  as  always,  Browning  has  writ- 
ten the  longest  drama  in  literature.  Each 
actor  speaks  his  part,  then  leaves  the  stage. 
But  his  very  story  is  dramatic,  and  suggests 
a  stage  with  many  players.  You,  by  Brown- 
ing's subtle  power  of  suggestion,  hear  a  dia- 
logue where  none  is  spoken.  His  dramatic 
impulse  guides  Browning  unerringly,  as  in- 
stinct the  sea-fowl  along  "his  solitary  way." 
I  call  this  power  masterfully  dramatic.  No 
one  questions  his  originality.  There  is  no- 
body like  him.  No  one  could  think  him  a  bor- 
rower.     Bayne    and    Stedman    may    discuss 


The  Ring  and  the  Book  301 

Tennyson's  debt  to  Theocritus;  but  to  whom 
is  Browning  debtor?  Lender  he  is,  not  bor- 
rower. He  is  opulent  in  originality.  His 
themes  are  new  as  unexplored  seas.  This 
trait  is  observable  in  all  Browning's  poetry; 
but  in  no  place  so  noticeable  as  in  "The  Ring 
and  the  Book."  The  audacity  of  the  under- 
taking is  a  delight;  but  the  consummate  genius 
exhibited  in  execution  is  a  larger  delight.  To 
tell  all  one  had  to  tell  in  a  prelude,  and  ask 
readers  to  stay  twenty  thousand  verses  longer? 
Nothing  more  original  has  ever  been  con- 
ceived than  this  poem.  And  when  we  con- 
sider how  he  came  last  of  our  great  poets, 
when  each  had  harvested  and  gleaned  the 
field,  and  that  we  are  so  impressed  with  the 
originality  of  no  poet  since  Homer,  wonder 
grows. 

Now  to  the  special  survey  of  this  medi- 
aeval cathedral :  Astronomers  who  would  watch 
a  transit  of  Venus  go  half  about  the  world  to 
find  a  spot  for  planting  their  telescope.  We 
dare  not  be  less  wise  in  watching  the  transit 
of  a  soul.  Catch  the  movement  of  the  central 
sun,  and  the  movements  of  all  planets  will  be- 
come apparent.  And  Pompilia  is  central  sun 
of  "The   Ring  and  the   Book."     She  is   the 


302  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

dramatis  persona.  In  the  light  of  her  character 
all  else  becomes  visible.  Woman's  centrality 
in  the  drama  of  life  is  thus  expressed.  Count 
Guido  the  husband,  and  Caponsacchi,  priest, 
deliverer  and  lover,  are  chief  foils;  while  Pi- 
etro  and  Violante,  professed  father  and  mother 
of  Pompilia,  one  half,  and  the  other  half  Rome, 
the  deliberate  judgment  of  Rome,  lawyers,  and 
gray,  pure  Pope,  are  ancillary  merely. 

The  geography  of  these  twelve  books  is, 
prelude  stating  data  of  the  tragedy,  opinion  of 
Rome  sympathetic  toward  Guido,  followed  by 
opinion  sympathetic  toward  Pompilia,  closing 
with  the  deliberate  judgment  of  those  capable 
of  coming  to  a  wise  conclusion  in  view  of  all 
the  evidence ;  then  Count  Guido,  fresh  from  the 
rack,  tells  his  story;  after  him  Caponsacchi, 
with  news  of  Pompilia's  murder  at  the  hands 
of  Guido  and  his  confederates  freshly  come 
to  him;  then  Pompilia,  lying  wounded,  white, 
faint,  dying,  breathes  out  her  story  tender  as 
a  tale  of  hapless  love,  pleas  of  prosecution  and 
defense  filled  brimful  of  scholastic  subtleties, 
the  Pope  soliloquizes  in  words  of  beauty,  pa- 
thos, depth,  and  discernment;  and  on  his  last 
night  on  earth,  Guido,  in  presence  of  cardinal 
and  abate,  speaks  once  more,  and,  as  before, 


The  Ring  and  the  Book  303 

utters  only  lies,  until  his  last  word,  when  one 
truth  is  spoken,  then  our  poet's  postlude;  and 
"The  Ring  and  the  Book"  is  ended.  Such  the 
scaffolding  of  this  poem. 

The  crime  of  marriage  for  position  is  theme 
of  "The  Ring  and  the  Book,"  and  we  are  in 
the  midst  of  a  grave  social  question.  Mar- 
riage is  the  basis  of  society.  Roman  Cathol- 
icism says,  Marriage  is  a  sacrament;  the  State 
says,  Marriage  is  a  civil  contract;  atheism  says, 
Marriage  is  slavery;  Protestantism  says,  Mar- 
riage is  a  divine  institution,  implying  a  union 
of  souls  solemnized  by  a  religious  ceremony; 
and  God  says,  Marriage  is  a  necessity  of  civili- 
zation and  righteousness.  Marriage,  what 
shall  we  do  with  it?  is  a  current  problem. 
Grant  Allen  and  Hardy  say,  Abolish  it.  George 
Eliot  and  George  Henry  Lewes  say,  Abolish  it. 
Marriage  is  a  living  theme;  and  most  pro- 
found of  all  discussions  of  this  vital  topic  is 
"The  Ring  and  the  Book."  Browning  has 
given  two  discussions  of  marriage;  one  in 
James  Lee's  wife,  the  other  in  Pompilia.  The 
former  is  a  sweet  woman,  loving  her  husband, 
and  waking  up  to  the  sad  truth  which  clouds 
her  life  like  autumn  afternoon.  She  is  out- 
side her  husband's  world.    He  does  not  think 


3°4  The  Poefs  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

of  her.  She  is  no  necessary  part  of  his  heart's 
furnishing.  And  she  is  lonely,  bereft,  a  widow 
without  widow's  weeds, — a  widow,  and  no 
grave  on  which  she  may  plant  flowers  and 
rain  her  tears.  She  is  going  away  from  him, 
hopelessly,  loving  him  still,  longing  for  him; 
and  could  she  hear  his  voice  crying,  "Come 
back,  my  love/'  her  heart  would  leap  with  joy. 
But  no  recalling  voice  is  heard,  and  she  sails 
away,  lonely  and  alone. 

"The  Ring  and  the  Book"  is  a  study  in 
marriage  for  position — the  barter  of  a  woman 
for  a  count's  coat-of-arms.  The  exchange  of 
wealth  for  ancestry,  how  recent  this  sale 
sounds!  Is  it  of  Pompilia  this  story  speaks? 
Surely  we  had  been  able  to  supply  another 
name  not  so  entirely  unfamiliar  to  our  ears. 
And  if  crime  ever  received  terrible  arraign- 
ment, marriage  for  position  has  received  that 
arraignment  from  Robert  Browning.  "The 
Ring  and  the  Book"  is  the  tragedy  of  mar- 
riage not  for  love,  but  for  place.  The  story 
is:  Pompilia,  a  child  of  thirteen,  beloved,  pure, 
beautiful,  and  rich,  is  by  her  mother's  mistaken 
love  espoused  and  wedded  to  a  nobleman  for 
his  name.  He  is  an  aristocrat,  vile,  past  life's 
prime,  very  poor,  and  trades  his  blood   for 


The  Ring  and  the  Book  305 

gold.  Violante  meant  her  matchmaking  in 
love.  She  longed  to  see  Pompilia,  her  beloved, 
happy  and  great;  as  if  anything  could  com- 
pensate for  lack  of  love!  Strange  a  mother 
should  know  no  better.  She  meant  to  make 
her  daughter  happy  as  singing  birds,  and  did 
make  her  more  miserable  than  words  know 
how  to  tell,  and  became  in  effect  her  mur- 
derer. Pompilia  was  child  in  years,  but  more 
a  child  in  thought.  She  knew  nothing  of  mar- 
riage beyond  the  name.  She  was  simple  as  a 
flower,  and  happy  as  the  birds  in  dewy  dawns. 
Care  floated  no  cloud  across  her  sky.  All  was 
love  and  laughter;  but  a  priest,  brother  to 
Count  Guido,  saw  how  he  might  recover  his 
brother's  lost  fortune  and  his  own,  and  with 
simple  Violante  plans  this  union  between  his 
brother  and  her  daughter;  and  Violante,  with- 
out the  knowledge  of  Pietro,  takes  Pompilia 
to  a  cathedral  in  the  hush  of  a  rainy  evening, 
and  weds  her  to  Count  Guido.  The  wedding 
done,  Pompilia  is  left  alone,  and  thinks  the 
matter  ended.  But  Guido  claims  his  wife. 
Pietro  objects  and  yields,  he  and  Violante 
going  to  the  count's  villa  at  Arrezzo,  to  be 
near  their  child,  who  is  sunshine  to  their  age. 
Guido  hates  this  child-wife,  and,  with  machi- 

20 


3°6  The  Poefs  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

nations  base  as  Iago's  plottings,  schemes  to 
rid  him  of  his  wife,  but  become  possessor  of 
her  gold;  for  he  had  wed  gold,  and  not  wo- 
man.     He    succeeds    in    driving    father    and 
mother  away,  and  then  exercises  all  his  dia- 
bolical cunning  to  drive  his  wife  into  impru- 
dence.    He  places  her  in  the  theater  so  her 
beauty    may    be    observed;    writes   madrigals 
with  his  own  hand,  afTecting  they  come  from 
an  enamored  priest,  writing  this  priest  letters 
of  passionate  love  to  which  Pompilia's  name 
is  attached;  persecutes  her  with  the  presence 
and    advices    of   a    maid,    Guido's   paramour; 
makes  her  estate  worse  than  death.    She  longs 
to    die,    seeks    help    from    confessor,    then    a 
bishop;  is  made  sport  of,  is   rebuffed;  prays 
still  with  breaking  heart,  and  at  last  suffers 
as  one  benumbed,  careless  for  life,  but  eager 
if  eagerness  knows  her  face,  for  death.     Then 
in  the  drowse  of  this  lethargy,  she  finds  herself 
keeper  of  a  life  other  than  hers,  God's  promise 
of   a  babe;   then,   then   only,    she   appeals   to 
Caponsacchi  to  lend  his  help.     He  answers, 
"I  am  yours."    They  escape,  are  overtaken  by 
Guido,  who  has  plotted  for  this;  Pompilia  is 
not  restored  to  him  by  the  Church,  her  babe 
is  born;  then,  since  the  babe  is  Guido's,  and 


The  Ring  and  the  Book  307 

through  it  he  may  inherit  the  mother's  for- 
tune, he  murders  Violante,  Pietro,  and  Pom- 
pilia,  is  captured,  tried,  condemned,  beheaded; 
and  his  poison  blood  leaks  through  the  scaf- 
fold planks.     So 

"Let  this  old  woe  step  on  the  stage  once  more." 

Pompilia  is  the  fairest  portrait  of  woman 
put  on  canvas  by  any  artist  to  this  hour.  A 
bud  not  yet  become  a  flower,  a  sunbeam  glint- 
ing on  a  stream,  no  more!  when  suddenly  her 
life  meets  scourge  and  fire  like  martyr  at  the 
stake;  passes  through  flame,  and  comes  forth 
with  not  the  smell  of  fire  upon  it;  meets  life's 
fearful  problems;  lives  tragedy  through  to  its 
bloody  goal;  struggles  with  every  shape  of 
shame  which  courts  a  soul,  and  comes  through 
all  spotless  as  unflecked  clouds  that  float 
across  the  roof  of  heaven.  Concerning  her, 
hear  the  Pope  say: 

"First  of  the  first, 
Such  I  pronounce  Pompilia,  then  as  now 
Perfect  in  whiteness." 

"At  least  one  blossom  makes  me  proud  at  eve, 
Born  mid  the  briers  of  my  inclosure." 

"My  flower, 
My  rose,  I  gather  for  the  breast  of  God." 


308  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Otter  Essays 

Pompilia  represents  triumph  over  heredity. 
The  nameless  daughter  of  a  shameless  mother 
makes  a  world  debtor  for  her  gracious  life. 
Guido  had  heredity  for  a  help.  Pope  Innocent 
was  right  in  saying  concerning  him: 

"I  find  him  bound  then,  to  begin  life  well; 
Fortified  by  propitious  circumstance, 
Great  birth,  good  breeding,  with  the  Church  for 

guide, 
How  lives  he?    Cased  thus  in  a  coat  of  proof, 
Mailed  like  a  man-at-arms,  though  all  the  while 
A  puny  starveling." 

Of  Count  Guido  much  might  in  reason  have 
been  prophesied;  but  he  is  less  than  man.  He 
shames  the  race  that  bore  him.  He  was  a 
parasite  on  society.  Not  one  poor  nobility 
blesses  his  life;  he  did  not  even  know  how  to 
die.  Cowards  do  often,  while  pallor  whitens 
cheek  and  lip,  yet  gather  up  their  little  manli- 
ness to  die.  But  Guido  died  coward  as  he 
lived,  a  shriek  upon  his  lips.  So  base  a  soul 
has  not  often  been  conceived.  His  face  and 
figure  are  limned  with  rarest  art.  He  is  man 
at  his  worst.  Iago  was  not  so  vile  as  he;  for 
Iago   plotted   against    Othello's   wife;   Guido 


The  Ring  and  the  Book  309 

plotted  against  his  own.  He  comes  fresh  from 
the  rack  with  a  lie  upon  his  lips.  He  affects 
to  have  been  injured: 

"This  getting  tortured  merely  in  the  flesh 
Amounts  to  almost  an  agreeable  change. 
Four  years  have  I  been  operated  on 
I,  the  soul,  do  you  see — its  tense  and  tremulous 
part — 

My  self-respect,  my  care  for  a  good  name 

Pride  in  an  old  one,  love  of  kindred — just 

A  mother,  brothers,  sisters,  and  the  like, 

That  looked  up  to  my  face  when  the  days  were 

dim, 
And  fancied  they  found  light  there — no  one  spot, 
Foppishly  sensitive,  but  has  paid  its  pang." 

Huger  hypocrisy  does  not  breathe.  The 
rack,  he  says,  was  tenderness  matched  with 
his  hurt.  With  swollen  joint  and  shoulder 
sprung  from  socket,  with  obsequious  looks 
and  words,  he  attempts  ogling  this  court,  and 
besmirching  Pompilia.  He  has  murdered  her; 
now  he  will  murder  her  good  name,  the  soli- 
tary good  he  has  not  already  bereft  her  of. 
With  consummate  skill  he  makes  covert  ap- 
peal to  every  prejudice  lying  hid  at  the  jurors' 
hearts,  his  noble  house,  his  priestly  apprentice- 


310  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

ship,  the  slumbering  hatred  of  patrician  for 
plebeian ;  he  forgets  no  one  of  them.  The  rack 
has  quickened  all  his  intellectual  powers  until 
his  mediocre  capacity  stands  him  for  genius. 
He  is  fighting  a  battle  for  life.  That  calls  his 
mightiest  forth.  When  he  is  done,  you  loathe 
him  as  you  do  a  serpent,  only  more,  seeing  he 
has  made  himself  so  venomous  and  slimy. 
You  can  not  name  a  virtue  in  him.  God  saw 
none. 

An  old  libertine  covetous  for  gold.  He 
will  steal  from  his  own  child,  and  he  a  two- 
weeks'  babe !  He  wedded  a  child  for  gold.  He 
saw  she  was  simple  and  pure.  The  sight  of 
her  helplessness  might  have  turned  a  flint  to 
tenderness.  It  touched  not  Guido.  He 
hounds  her  with  a  pertinacity  and  diabolism 
which  would  have  shamed  Iago.  Every  snare 
a  foul  mind  could  conceive,  he  set.  He  calls 
a  harlot  to  his  help  to  trip  his  wife.  She  was 
hunted ! 

The  look  upon  her  face  would  make 
marble  weep;  he  did  only  redouble  diligence 
to  snare  her,  finding  no  fault  in  her.  A  ser- 
pent charming  a  singing-bird  unto  its  death 
is  too  fair  a  figure  for  this  man.     He  is  des- 


The  Ring  and  the  Book  31 1 

picably  mean.  His  vices  are  the  very  de- 
pravity of  vice. 

"Not  one  permissible  impulse  moves  the  man, 
From  the  mere  liking  of  the  eye  and  ear, 
To  the  true  longing  of  the  heart  that  loves, — 
No  trace  of  these;  but  all  to  instigate 
Is  what  sinks  man  past  level  of  the  brute." 

"All  is  lust  for  money;  to  get  gold, — 
Why  lie,  rob;  if  it  must  be,  murder!" 

"Always  subordinating  (note  the  point!) 
Revenge,  the  manlier  sin,  to  interest, 
The  meaner." 

And 

"Those  letters  false  beyond  all  forgery." 

His  hypocrisy  clings  to  him  close  as  skin  to 
flesh.  On  that  night  preluding  his  execution, 
you  may  hear  his 

"O,  that  men  would  be  good!" 

He  is  the  Pharisee  by  trade.  His  life  is  one 
long:  villainy.  He  had  no  better  moments. 
He  had  so  acclimated  his  soul  to  shame  as  to 
be  steeped  in  it.  He  did  not  pray,  seeing  he 
was  practical  atheist.     God  was  not,  for  he 


312  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

called  nature  God.  God  was  no  factor  in  his 
life.  He  had  been  afforded  training  by  the 
Church.  His  was  no  lack  of  opportunity.  His 
light  was  sufficient.  He  sinned  against  abun- 
dant knowledge.  He  was  sterile  of  virtue,  as 
a  bleak  rock  of  plant  and  soil.  His  life  had 
been  a  lie;  his  testimony  fresh  come  from  the 
rack's  twinge,  and  in  death-chamber  waiting 
the  scaffold,  was  one  reverberated  perjury. 
One  splinter  of  truth  was  struck  from  him 
as  he  stumbled  to  the  scaffold,  as  lightning 
breaks  splinters  from  the  rock.  Pope  Inno- 
cent soliloquizes: 

"For  the  main  criminal  I  have  no  hope 
Except  in  such  a  suddenness  of  fate. 
I  stood  at  Naples  once,  a  night  so  dark 
I  could  have  scarce  conjectured  there  was  earth 
Anywhere,  sky  or  sea  or  world  at  all; 
But   the    night's   black   was   burst   through    by   a 

blaze — 
Thunder  struck  blow  on  blow,  earth  groaned  and 

bore, 
Through  her  whole  length  of  mountain  visible; 
There  lay  the  city  thick  and  plain  with  spires, 
And,  like  a  ghost,  disshrouded,  white  the  sea. 
So  may  the  truth  be  flashed  out  by  one  blow, 
And  Guido  see  one  instant,  and  be  saved." 


The  Ring  and  the  Book  3*3 

Then  hear  Guido  shriek: 

"Who  are  these  you  have  let  descend  my  stair? 
Ha,  their  accursed  psalm!     Lights  at  the  sill! 
Is  it  'Open'  they  dare  bid  you?    Treachery! 
Sirs,  have  I  spoken  one  word  all  this  while 
Out  of  the  world  of  words  I  had  to  say? 
Not    one    word!      All    was    folly — I    laughed    and 

mocked! 
Sirs,  my  first  true  word,  all  truth  and  no  lie, 
Is,  save  me  notwithstanding!     Life  is  all! 
I  was  just  stark  mad, — let  the  madman  live, 
Pressed  by  as  many  chains  as  you  please  to  pile! 
Do  n't  open!    Hold  me  from  them!    I  am  yours; 
I  am  the  grandduke's — no,  I  am  the  Pope's! 
Abate,  Cardinal,  Christ,  Maria,  God, 
Pompilia,  will  you  let  them  murder  me?" 

And  a  scaffold  wet  with  blood,  villain's 
blood;  and  Count  Guido  Franceschina  is  the 
voice  of  a  curse  lingering  in  the  air!  What  a 
consummate  work  of  genius  is  this  portrait- 
ure! Such  was  the  scion  of  a  noble  house,  a 
man  of  ancestry  and  inspiring  environment. 

But  Pompilia,  of  whom  nothing  could  be 
expected,  seeing  heredity  was  so  foul,  Pompilia 
lived  a  life  lovely  as  any  dream  of  God.  That 
is  life.  We  are  not  creatures,  but  creators. 
God  and  a  soul  are  competent  to  triumph  over 


3*4  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

heredity.  But  Pompilia  is  alone.  All  are 
against  her.  Her  mother  sold  her  as  a  babe. 
Husband,  maid,  Church,  are  her  foes.  She  has 
no  love,  no  memory  of  one  bright  day,  im- 
mortal as  the  heart.  Know  you  anybody  so 
alone  as  she?  Chaucer's  Griselda  was  up- 
holden  by  the  memory  that  her  wedded  love 
had  been  so  beautiful  while  it  was  hers.  Enid 
could  not  forget  her  husband  had  loved  her 
utterly  upon  a  day.  Desdemona  had  Emilia 
for  as  fast  a  friend  as  ever  championed  a  cause. 
She  had  Iago;  but  she  had  Othello,  too.  She 
was  sure  he  loved  her,  and  never  surer  than 
when  at  his  hands  she  died.  His  murder  was 
certificate  of  his  love.  But  Pompilia  had  no- 
body. She  was  so  alone!  Maid  traitor  to  her, 
and  seeking  her  ruin,  Guido  never  loved  her, 
and  indifference  was  kindled  into  hate.  Alone! 
Poor  Pompilia!  Poor  Pompilia!  When  Gwen- 
dolyn Grandcourt  felt  her  better  self  going 
from  her,  Daniel  Deronda  was  her  stay.  Pom- 
pilia was  utterly  alone.  No  human  sympathy 
touches  her.  She  was  bereft — but  she  had 
God!  This  is  the  secret  of  her  purity  and 
triumph.  Fighting  this  fight  for  truth,  she 
felt  for  God.  And  as  her  days  gloomed 
blacker  than  night,  and  she  found  life  all  but 


The  Ring  and  the  Book  315 

dragged  from  its  moorings,  God  was  all  her 
help.  Guido  was  atheist;  Pompilia  was  stout 
to  hold  to  God.  She  groped,  God  seemed  so 
far  removed,  poor  child! — so  far  removed,  and 
seemed  to  hide  his  face.  Then  Pompilia 
reached  hands  high  in  the  darkness,  and  on  a 
sudden,  when  hope  felt  like  a  breaking  staff, 
she  caught  the  hand  of  the  Eternal  Strength. 
She  prayed ;  that  saved  her.  Betrayed  of  man, 
she  held  to  God,  and  he  did  not  betray  her; 
but  brought  her  through  deep  waters  in  safety 
unto  heaven. 

One  day  there  was  turned  a  page  of  life  on 
which  suffering  was  not  written.  At  the  play, 
whither  Guido  had  taken  her  to  snare  her,  sit- 
ting in  the  gallery,  where  he  had  seated  her, 
himself  invisible,  she  saw  the  sad  and  noble 
face  of  Caponsacchi.  He  was  looking  at  her 
as  a  watcher  at  the  stars,  and  saw  a  face  of 
surprising  beauty,  but  of  unutterable  sadness. 
Laughter  knew  not  how  to  run  across  that 
face,  once  the  home  of  joy.  And  sight  of  this 
man's  face  made  it  possible  for  Pompilia  to 
know  great  love  before  death  brought  silence. 
And  Caponsacchi  was  only  less  noble  in  man- 
hood than  Pompilia  in  womanhood.  Liter- 
ature  must   wander  far  before  another   such 


3lft  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

poem  as  Caponsacchi's  narrative  shall  be  told. 
He  was  priest  and  man;  and  what  more  could 
praise  utter?  He  saw  and  loved,  and  beneath 
her  lattice  he  watched,  suspicioning  she  might 
have  need  of  him, — watched  with  such  large 
fidelity  as  love  uses  at  a  bed  of  pain.  Guido 
wrote  letters  to  him  purporting  to  come  from 
Pompilia;  but  this  lover  was  not  deceived.  He 
trusted  the  face  he  had  seen,  and  felt  confirmed 
in  his  belief  she  could  not  be  of  such  a  sort. 
She  sent  him  no  word  nor  gave  him  any  look, 
but  her  sad  face  haunted  him.  If  she  drew 
near  a  casement  and  saw  him,  she  slipped  back 
into  darkness.  Truth  was  in  him  and  pene- 
tration. He  was  writer  of  poems  for  the  bish- 
op's need.  He  was  a  man  through  all,  nor 
molded  to  be  a  court  puppet.  He  haunted 
lattice  and  street  as  whip-poor-wills  do  the 
woods  at  night.  Her  unutterable  sadness 
makes  mute  appeal  to  him,  and  is  graven  on 
his  memory  as  by  graver's  sharpest  tool.  At 
last  Pompilia,  in  extremity  of  distress,  appeals 
to  his  chivalry.  He  knows  he  risks  all  in  help- 
ing; but  no  danger  was  hazard  if  he  might 
bring  her  succor.  The  love  for  remote  stars 
had  not  been  purer  than  his  love  for  her.  He 
planned  the  escape,  was  censured  of  his  order. 


The  tfing  and  the  Book  317 

was  laughed  at  as  if  his  had  been  a  youthful 
escapade.  They  reckoned  him  among  them- 
selves; for  knighthood  like  his  they  could  not 
conceive,  he  being  as  remote  from  them  as 
if  he  had  been  full  citizen  of  heaven.  His  was 
that  large  self-forgetfulness  in  which  love 
takes  delight.  He  sees  need,  duty;  what  need 
he  more?  Innocent  looking  on  him  with 
tears'  dim  mists  in  his  eyes,  whispers, 

"Thou,  pledged  to  dance  not  fight 
Sprang'st  forth  the  hero!" 

Let    his    self-forgetfulness   gleam   out    like 
fires  from  precious  stones  in  this: 

"For  Pompilia,  be  advised. 
Build  churches,  go  pray!     You  will  find  me  there, 
I  know,  if  you  come — and  you  will  come  I  know. 
Why,  there  's  a  Judge  weeping!    Did  I  not  say 
You  were  good  and  true  at  bottom?     You  see  the 

truth— 
I  am  glad  I  helped  you:  she  helped  me  just  so." 

And  Pope  Innocent: 

"Thou  whose  sword-hand  was  used  to  strike  the  lute, 
Whose  sentry-station  graced  some  wanton's  gate, 
Thou  did'st  push  forward  and  show  mettle,  shame 
The  laggards,  and  retrieve  the  day.     Well  done! 
Be  glad  thou  hast  let  light  into  the  world, 


318  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

Through  that  irregular  breach  o'  the  boundary, — 

see 
The  same  upon  thy  path  and  march  assured, 
Learning  anew  the  use  of  soldiership, 
Self-abnegation,  freedom  from  all  fear, 
Loyalty  to  the  life's  end!" 

And  such  manhood  had  serene  rewards. 
He  was  held  in  Pompilia's  heart  as  any  saint. 
It  was  worth  all  it  cost,  and  more.    She  says: 

"  'T  is  now  when  I  am  most  upon  the  move 
I  feel  for  what  I  verily  find — again 
The  face,  again  the  eyes,  again  through  all, 
The  heart  and  its  immeasurable  love 
Of  my  one  friend,  my  only,  all  my  own, 
Who  put  his  breast  between  the  spears  and  me. 
Ever  with  Caponsacchi!     Otherwise, 
Here  alone  would  be  failure,  loss  to  me — 
How  much  more  loss  to  him,  with  life  debarred 
From  giving  life,  love  locked  from  love's  display, 
The   day-star   stopped   its  task   that   makes   night 

morn ! 
O  lover  of  my  life,  O  soldier-saint, 
No  work  begun  shall  ever  pause  for  death! 
Love  will  be  helpful  to  me  more  and  more 
I'  the  coming  course,  the  new  path  I  must  tread — 
My   weak   hand   in   thy   strong  hand,    strong   for 

that! 
Tell  him  that  if  I  seem  without  him  now, 
That's  the  world's  insight.     O,  he  understands! 


The  Ring  and  the  Book  319 

He  is  at  Civita — do  I  once  doubt 

The  world  again  is  holding  us  apart? 

He  had  been  here,  displayed  in  my  behalf 

The  broad  brow  that  reverberates  the  truth, 

And  flashed  the  word  God  gave  him  back  to  man!" 

To  reflect  God,  that  is  life's  goal;  and  to 
have  lived  a  life  at  whatever  cost  which  leaves 
such  impress,  would  turn  the  gall  it  drank 
to  wine,  and  change  gloom  to  glory.  And 
this  lover  came  to  teach  her  love.  He  came 
into  a  barren  heart  bereft  of  all,  and  sorely 
needing  help  and  love.  God  was  her  stay,  but 
love  like  his  illumines  God.  It  is  not  hard 
to  hold  that  God  is  love,  when  once  we  know 
some  woman  or  some  man  is  love. 

Only  when  Pompilia  finds  herself  a  prom- 
ised mother,  does  she  plan  to  flee.  Her  life 
might  die ;  she  could  be  glad  for  that ;  but  now 
she  is  not  her  own.  Another  life  holds  her 
skirts.  She  throws  herself  on  Caponsacchi, 
crying,  "Help,  O  help!"  They  flee.  The  story 
hastes.  Her  babe  is  born.  Guido  comes  to 
the  door  of  her  father's  home,  and  it  is  Christ- 
mas time!  He  whispers,  "Caponsacchi!" 
whereat  the  door  is  opened — then  murder 
thrusts  and  slays  Pietro,  Violante,  Pompilia. 
She  lives  to  tell  her  story.     God  was  good  to 


320  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

her  in  this.  To  tell  her  woe  as  she  lies,  white, 
weak,  dying, — this  is  Pompilia's  vindication, 
if  she  needed  one.  Truth  sits  upon  her 
dying  lips,  as  on  her  living  lips.  To  hear  this 
dying  story  is  to  listen  to  an  angel  speak. 
She  utters  no  recriminatory  words.  No  bitter- 
ness mixes  with  her  speech.  Upon  her  ears 
the  music  of  her  morning  breaks.  In  sight 
and  sound  of  heaven  she  falters  forth  her  story, 
tells  it  so  that  help  high  as  mountains  lifts  us 
toward  God.  She  has  no  words  of  blame; 
rather  words  of  palliation.  Nor  is  she  con- 
scious of  this  merit.  She  blames  not  her 
mother,  who  bore  her  in  shame  and  sold  her: 

"If  she   sold  .  .  .  what  they  call  sold  ...  me  her 
child, 
I  shall  believe  she  hoped  in  her  poor  heart 
That  I  at  least  might  try  be  good  and  pure, 
Begin  to  live  untempted,  not  go  doomed 
And  done  with  ere  once  found  in  fault  as  she." 

In  behalf  of  Violante,  she  whispers, 

"Do  let  me  speak  for  her  you  blame  so  much." 

"Yes,  everybody  that  leaves  life  sees  all 
Softened  and  bettered;  so  with  other  sights; 
To  me,  at  least,  was  never  evening  yet 
But  seemed  far  beautifuler  than  its  day, 
For  past  is  past." 


The  Ring  and  the  Book  321 

And  for  Guide,  the  reef  on  which  her  life  was 
wrecked — for  Guido,  her  murderer,  she  has 
forgiveness : 

"For  that  most  woeful  man,  my  husband  once, 
Who,  needing  respite,  still  draws  vital  breath, 
I — pardon  him?    So  far  as  lies  in  me, 
I  give  him  for  his  good  the  life  he  takes, 
Praying  the  world  will  therefore  acquiesce. 
Let  him  make  God  amends!" 

Since  in  God's  face 

"Is  light,  but  in  his  shadow  healing  too; 
Let  Guido  touch  the  shadow  and  be  healed!" 

Caponsacchi  must  not  grieve  as  though  in 
him  were  blame: 

"Say,  from  the  deed  no  touch 
Of  harm  came,  but  all  good,  all  happiness, 
Not  one  faint  fleck  of  failure." 

"This  one  heart  gave  me  all  the  spring." 

And  Pompilia  died,  a  woman  of  only  seven- 
teen years!  Yet  she  had  lived  life  through. 
The  Pope  saw  that.  He  was  one  clean,  strong 
man  grown  gray.  How  he  saw  virtue  shine! 
How  undimmed  his  sight  for  seeing  goodness. 
Naught  escaped  him  there.  No  fog  hung  on 
this  landscape.  His  monologue  is  beautiful  as 
a  psalm  sung  in  the  evening's  twilight.    "This 

21 


322  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

gray,  ultimate  decrepitude"  sees  Guido,  Ca- 
ponsacchi,  and  Pompilia  as  seen  of  God.  In 
matters  moral,  his  sight  is  keen  as  eagle's; 
and  Innocent  knew  Pompilia  had  lived  a  life 
whose  girth  outspanned  this  dull  world.  She 
had  loved.  Great  love  swept  round  her  like  a 
sea.  She  had  known  motherhood,  God's  de- 
light for  woman: 

"They  loved  me  as  I  love  my  babe 
( — Nearly  so,  that  is — quite  so  could  not  be — )'* 

"Then  I  must  lay  my  babe  away  with  God, 
Nor  think  of  him  again  for  gratitude." 

"Till  my  boy  was  born, 
Born  all  in  love,  with  naught  to  spoil  the  bliss 
A  whole  long  fortnight;  in  a  life  like  mine 
A  fortnight  filled  with  bliss  is  long  and  much. 
All  women  are  not  mothers  of  a  boy, 
Though  they  live  twice  the  length  of  my  whole  life, 
And,  as  they  fancy,  happily  all  the  same." 

She  had  met  evil,  and  had  triumphed  and 
grown  strong: 

"Was  the  trial  sore? 
Temptation  sharp?     Thank  God  a  second  time! 
Why  comes  temptation  but  for  man  to  meet 
And  master,  and  make  crouch  beneath  his  foot 
And  so  be  pedestaled  in  triumph?" 


The  Ring  and  the  Book  323 

"So  my  heart  be  struck, 
What  care  I,  by  God's  gloved  hand  or  the  bare? 
Nor  do  I  much  perplex  me  with  aught  hard, 
Dubious  in  the  transmitting  of  the  tale; 
No,  nor  with  certain  riddles  set  to  solve. 
This  life  is  training  and  a  passage:  pass — 
Still,  we  march  over  some  flat  obstacle 
We  made  give  way  before  us:  solid  truth 
In  front  of  it,  what  motion  for  the  world? 
The  moral  sense  grows  but  by  exercise. 
'T  is  even  as  a  man  grew  probatively 
Initiated  in  Godship,  set  to  make 
A  fairer  moral  world  than  this  he  finds, 
Guess  now  what  shall  be  known  hereafter." 

And  well  for  her.    She  had  conquered. 

"Life  is  probation,  and  the  earth  no  goal 
But  starting-point  of  man." 

And  she  has  begun  so  nobly!  The  storm  was 
terrible,  but  Pompilia  has  come  through  un- 
scathed. Nay,  the  very  storm  has  cleared  her 
sky  of  vapors,  and  she  saw  to  the  dim  out- 
posts of  the  world,  and  beheld  God,  her  lover 
never  failing.  Life  was  brief  indeed,  but  long 
enough  to  get  hold  on  God;  and  that  is  life 
at  its  best. 

"For  I  trust 
In  the  compensating,  great  God." 

"So  what  I  hold  by  is  my  prayer  to  God." 


324  The  Poefs  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

And  God  did  not  forget  her!  How  blessed 
that  is!  She  had  found  God  the  mighty.  She 
and  Christ  were  nearer  than  earth  can  ever 
bring  two  hearts.  She  had  learned  that  duty- 
was  larger  than  earthly  love.  The  tragedy  of 
divided  love  is  not  so  pathetic  as  the  tragedy 
of  duty  foresworn  for  love.  Love  and  duty, 
both  met!  And  how  she  loves!  I  know  not 
any  poetry  more  deep  in  its  sad  music  than 
the  closing  of  Pompilia's  story.  Her  voice 
grows  weak  and  eyes  grow  dim,  and  since  she 
can  not  hold  Caponsacchi's  hand  in  passing 
into  silence,  her  heart  reverts  to  him: 

"Tell  him 
It  was  the  name  of  him  I  sprang  to  meet 
When  came  the  knock,  the  summons,  and  the  end. 
'My  great  heart,  my  strong  hand  are  back  again!' 
I  would  have  sprung  to  these  beckoning  across 
Murder  and  hell  gigantic  and  distinct 
O'  the  threshold,  posted  to  exclude  me  heaven; 
He  is  ordained  to  call,  and  I  to  come! 

So  let  him  wait  God's  instant  men  call  years; 
Meantime  hold  hard  by  truth  and  his  great  soul, 
Do  out  the  duty!     Through  such  souls  alone 
God,  stooping,  shows  sufficient  of  his  light 
For  us  i'  the  dark  to  rise  by.    And  I  rise." 


The  Ring  and  the  Book  325 

And  now  her  attempted  word  sinks  low  to 

whisper,  and  her  whisper  no  mortal  ear  can 

catch,  a  quiver  of  the  lids,  a  quick,  glad  smile 

as  if  in  going  she  had  met  a  friend  she  loved — 

and  Pompilia  is 

"Passed 
To  where  beyond  these  voices  there  is  peace." 

She  has  conquered  heredity,  environment, 
shameless  duplicity,  and  found  how  God  would 
keep  them  who  trusted  in  him.  And  death 
came?  What  of  that?  She  had  lived  life,  had 
seen  God  with  naked  eyeball.  And  death 
was  no  more  than  a  stepping  across  a  runnel 
far  among  the  hills,  a  step — and  then — the 
blue  of  distant  mountains,  the  shifting  shadows 
of  the  clouds,  the  voice  of  waters,  the  infinite 
blue,  and — the  deathless  morning  and  the 
face  of  God ! 


Shylock  and  David  as  Interpreters  of  Life 

A  surface  difference  between  marble  and 
flesh  is  one  of  color.  Flesh  has  color;  marble 
is  colorless.  And  this  may  be  set  down  as  an 
unvarying  truth,  life  is  always  tinted,  borrow- 
ing pigments  from  within  and  without.  A  sea 
has  color  of  its  own.  Mid-Atlantic's  blues  are 
ravishing;  but  whoever  has  sailed  the  seas, 
knows  their  color  is  a  variable  quantity.  They 
do  not  hold  their  own  tenaciously.  A  sea  with 
inherent  hues  still  borrows  colors  from  the 
clouds.  I  have  seen  oceans  gray  as  dawn, 
dreary  as  winter  clouds,  silver  as  moonlight, 
crimson  as  heroes'  blood,  murky  as  rainy  twi- 
lights, black  as  storm.  This  is  a  common- 
place of  the  seas;  they  have  been  colored  by 
the  skies.  In  this  regard  character  is  not  in- 
frequently like  the  seas.  Environment  may 
color  it.  Similarity  ends  here;  for  seas  have 
no  choice,  since  skies  are  their  masters.  But 
character  determines  color  for  itself.  The 
moment  we  approach  character,  necessity  is  an 
obsolete  word.  Character  is  shapable  truly; 
but  is  more  truly  originative  and  shaping. 
Oceans  are  results;  characters  are  causes. 
326 


Shyiock  and  David  as  Interpreters  of  Life      327 

In  two  dramas,  "The  Merchant  of  Venice" 
and  "Saul,"  Shakespeare  and  Browning  have 
offered  estimates  of  life.  Consider  how  Shy- 
lock  sees  the  world,  and  how  David  sees  the 
world.  And  the  world  is  a  stable  quantity. 
An  enumeration  of  qualities  is  possible.  Some 
things  our  world  is;  some  things  our  world  is 
not.  Idealism  is  not  a  sincere  philosophy. 
Man  does  not  create  a  world  by  thought.  He 
is  inhabitant,  not  creator.  Earth  is  no  objecti- 
fied thought.  Kant  and  Plato  misled  us. 
They  trifled  with  our  consciousness.  Thought 
feels  a  world  is  dual,  not  singular.  Self  and 
non-self  make  up  the  category  of  existence. 
The  world  is  certain,  as  solid.  Reid's  philos- 
ophy holds.  Man  is  right.  Could  man  take 
inventory  of  this  planet's  stock,  he  might,  the 
inventory  ended,  say,  "This  is  your  world." 
How,  then,  shall  we  account  for  the  variant 
views  men  hold  of  life?  How  explain  men's 
seeing  a  different  world?  Does  not  the  idealist 
seem  right?  To  one  man  the  earth  is  a  witch's 
caldron,  a  receptacle  of  filth;  to  another,  a 
theater  for  sublime  activities.  What,  then,  are 
there  two  worlds;  or  is  each  an  objectification 
of  individual  thought?  No!  Neither  view  is 
correct.    There  is  one  world,  real,  substantial, 


328  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

gripped  of  gravitation,  and  lighted  by  the  sun. 
Both  men  were  accurate  of  vision.  What  both 
saw  was  there.  Earth  is  a  caldron  boiling  to 
the  rim  with  shame;  earth  is  a  theater  for 
heroisms;  and  who  sees  the  whole  world  sees 
this.  A  profound  philosophy  eliminates  neither 
factor,  sees  both,  catalogues  both.  Earth  is  a 
totality.     Light 

"Fires  the  proud  tops  of  the  eastern  pines;" 

but  darkness,  too,  has  silent  and  solemn  pomp, 
and  exercises  sovereignty  through  many  a 
midnight.  What  boots  it  to  deny  self-evident 
truths?  An  entire  world  is  a  true  world.  Alan 
sees  a  segment,  and  names  his  petty  section 
all.  A  valley  shut  in  of  solemn  mountains  is 
a  poem,  but  is  not  the  earth.  Who  named  it 
so,  misnamed  it.  What  is  needed  is  a  com- 
plete philosphy.  A  solitary  hemisphere  needs 
a  new  world  to  fill  out  its  lacking  bulk.  Rus- 
kin  saw  other  world  than  Carlyle  saw.  The 
cosmos  each  saw  was  real  enough.  The  actual 
world  was  what  both  saw.  Therefore  we  may 
set  this  down  as  truth,  The  world  is  all  we  see. 
The  fallacy  is,  man  insists  his  narrow  horizon 
includes  the  world.  The  value  of  Shylock  and 
David  as  exponents  is  that  they  stand  at  oppo- 


Shylock  and  David  as  Interpreters  of  Life      329* 

site  poles.  Shylock  was  pessimist;  David  was 
optimist. 

A  man  has  dual  value,  as  a  person  and  as  a 
representative.  Who  sees  Shylock  and  David, 
sons  of  one  race,  will  look  again.  Shylock 
with  his  furrowed  face,  his  beetling  brows,  his 
eyes  flashing  like  dagger's  points,  his  cruel 
setting  of  the  lips  boding  no  pity,  his  face 
from  which  laughter  has  died  out  so  long  ago 
you  can  not  realize  sunlight  ever  brightened 
the  somber  landscape,  tangled  and  disheveled 
locks  threaded  with  silver,  evident  force  on  face 
and  form, — this  is  Shylock.  David  is  a  youth. 
The  joy  of  morning  brightens  on  him,  and  the 
voice  of  morning  sings  in  him.  His  cheek  is 
ruddy,  his  locks  are  tangled  gold.  The  odors 
of  the  Bethlehem  hills  still  scent  his  garments, 
genius  lights  his  eyes  like  Oriental  dawns,  a 
poet's  touch  twangs  the  harp  he  holds,  dreams 
waken  where  he  comes,  and  his  fingers  which 

"Glimpsed  down  the  strings  of  his  harp 
In  a  tremulous  refrain," 

have  a  prophecy  of  might  to  grip  a  sword  or 
scepter, — this  is  David.  And  Shylock  is  talk- 
ing of  restitution,  and  David  is  talking  of 
restoration.      Shylock    there    is    self;    David 


33°  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

there  is  Saul.     Shylock  is  pessimist;  David  is 
optimist. 

Timon  of  Athens  is  Shakespeare's  conscious 
pessimist,  Lear  and  Shylock  his  unconscious 
pessimists.  Timon  despises  and  curses.  Shy- 
lock, seeing  his  hour,  seizes  it  and  demands. 
Timon  is  words;  Shylock  is  deeds.  Two  in- 
terpretations of  Shylock  obtain.  Shylock  is 
base,  revengeful,  shameless,  crammed  with 
causeless  hate,  holding  ducats  above  daugh- 
ter,— is,  in  short,  the  sum  of  villainies;  or 
Shylock  is  a  wronged  race,  hated,  spit  upon, 
used  as  men  use  tongs  to  handle  coals,  a  man 
sinned  against  rather  than  sinning,  a  noble 
self-respect,  an  outraged  spirit,  might  grown 
cruel  through  persecution,  his  hate  justifiable 
resentfulness;  Shylock  needs  condoning,  mer- 
its sympathy.  Adopt  which  view  you  will,  he 
is  the  person  of  the  comedy.  His  is  the  strong 
spirit  of  the  play.  Whom  will  you  match  with 
him?  Surely  not  Bassanio  nor  Antonio;  not 
Portia  nor  Lorenzo  nor  Jessica.  We  could 
not  compare  him  with  the  duke  of  Venice  nor 
the  princes  of  Morocco  and  Aragon.  Bassanio 
is  singularly  lacking  in  color.  Character  is 
not  catalogued  in  his  possessions.  Antonio 
excites  our  surface  sympathy.     We  see  him 


Shylock  and  David  as  Interpreters  of  Life      331 

at  his  best.  Friendship  gets  him  in  danger  of 
his  death.  He  is  pictured  as  the  compassion- 
ate and  injured  gentleman,  and  we  sob,  "Poor, 
poor  Antonio!"  but  have  in  reason  been  spec- 
tators of  the  one  heroism  of  his  life.  And  this 
nobility  colors  all  our  interpretation  of  him. 
But  of  anticipated  heroism  there  seems  no  in- 
timation. Strength  was  no  possession  of  his 
soul.  His  hand  on  ours  does  not  make  us 
thrill  as  to  the  touch  of  love.  'T  is  lesser  man- 
hood we  behold  in  him.  We  see  it  as  a  flash- 
light view.  The  overbearing  merchant  is 
shown  us  by  indignant  Shylock.  Let  us  con- 
clude, Antonio  is  no  man  to  hold  our  admira- 
tion. He  does  not  bear  acquaintance.  His 
nobility,  like  dew  on  flowers,  disappears  as 
day  progresses.  Lorenzo  is  a  lover  consum- 
mate in  the  art  of  making  love.  Poetry  clings 
to  his  words.  Moonlight  and  music  conspire 
to  glorify  him.  His  voice  is  sweet  as  winds 
whispering  in  the  pines.  The  whole  world 
loves  a  lover,  therefore  is  Lorenzo  safe,  but 
stands  on  no  merit  save  that  he  is  a  lover. 
Jessica  is  much  besides  ideal.  She  is  blind 
love,  no  more.  That  she  would  flee  and  filch 
is  scarcely  to  her  credit.  But  Portia?  She  is 
Shakespeare's   "intellectual   woman!"     Portia 


33 2  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

is  a  woman.  Her  heart  pleads.  Her  turning 
of  the  bond  against  Shylock  is  not  law,  but  a 
trick;  a  poor  subterfuge,  with  no  semblance  of 
law  upon  it;  feminine  alertness,  not  legal  sa- 
gacity. Nothing  about  Portia  argues  intel- 
lectuality. As  a  woman  in  love  she  is  charm- 
ing, as  what  woman  is  not? 

Shylock,  if  these  estimates  be  even  proxi- 
mately true,  has  no  fellow  in  the  play.  We 
can  not  ignore  him.  Strength,  cunning,  pene- 
tration, remembrance  of  wrong,  iron  determi- 
nation,— these  are  patent  in  Shylock.  He  is  a 
Jew,  and  loves  money  and  is  genius  in  its 
acquisition;  but  he  loves  his  daughter:  that  is 
Jewish,  too.  Human  instincts  speak  in  Jewish 
bosoms.  They  know  how  to  love  as  to  hate. 
As  a  Jew's  portrait,  Shylock  is  accurately 
painted.  What  Shakespeare  meant  in  "Mer- 
chant of  Venice"  nobody  can  tell.  Whether 
he  favored  Shylock  or  despised  him  must  re- 
main a  secret  forever.  But  he  has  dowered 
him  with  race  characteristics  and  capacity. 
Shylock  is  no  common  man.  In  Antonio  we 
see  the  best  side  out;  but  those  times  we  saw 
him,  he  not  knowing  we  were  looking,  were 
in  no  wise  creditable  to  him.  Shylock,  on  the 
contrary,  has  his  worst  side  out.     His  knife, 


Shylock  and  David  as  Interpreters  of  Life      333 

itching  for  a  pound  of  flesh  nighest  Antonio's 
heart,  horrifies  us;  but  all  incidental  observa- 
tions of  him  are  in  his  favor.  He  has  self- 
respect;  he  resents  the  contumely  piled  upon 
him  like  bales  upon  a  beast  of  burden ;  though 
he  loves  money  inordinately  (and  with  reason, 
seeing  it  is  his  sole  protection  in  a  civilization 
hating  the  Jew  as  if  he  were  a  plague),  he  loves 
his  daughter  too;  and,  finding  she  has  taken  a 
ring,  moans,  "It  was  my  turquoise;  I  had  it  of 
Leah  when  I  was  a  bachelor."  Love  of  money 
runs  into  penuriousness  as  an  ultimatum.  Jew 
is  come  to  mean  usurer,  and  not  wholly  with- 
out reason.  Shakespeare  has  given  the  temper 
of  mediaeval  Venice  toward  the  Jew.  Venice 
hated,  vilified,  robbed  him  when  it  might,  bor- 
rowed when  it  must. 

This  environment  colored  Shylock.  It  edu- 
cated his  worst  and  dwarfed  his  best.  He  be- 
came as  the  trees  on  the  verge  of  Niagara, 
twisted,  dwarfed,  malformed.  The  winds  from 
the  abyss  of  waters  have  wrestled  with  them, 
buffeted  them,  till  they  are  distortions.  En- 
vironment emphasized  traits  in  Shylock,  but 
created  none.  Shakespeare  is  exact.  En- 
vironment is  not  creative,  does  not  make  col- 
ors, but  simply  deepens  tints.    Shylock's  traits 


334  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

are  the  Jew's  traits.  Money  was  his  power 
and  safety,  but  a  Jew  loves  money  when  safety 
is  not  involved.  The  passion  for  gold  is  as  old 
as  Abraham.  He  grew  rich.  Jacob  grew  rich 
while  serving  for  Rachel.  Jews  are  masters  of 
the  art  of  acquiring  riches.  Antonio  hated  Shy- 
lock;  but  Shylock  hated  Antonio.  Christianity 
and  Judaism  are  mutually  intolerant,  each 
holding  itself  custodian  of  truth;  and  truth  is 
intolerant,  and  may  easily  grow  to  be  brow- 
beating in  self-assertiveness.  Shylock  hated 
opposition,  hated  the  Gentile.  I  doubt  not  he 
thought  the  race  element  in  his  hatred  large, 
and  the  individual  element  insignificant;  but 
this  was  self-deception.  His  hunger  for  re- 
venge was  not  ethnic,  but  personal.  Shylock 
would  have  hid  his  hate  behind  impersonality. 
He  was  wronged  indeed,  but  wrong  as  well. 
Would  he  had  been  larger!  This  is  Shylock. 
He  is  not  himself.  He  has  let  adverse  circum- 
stances master  his  nobilities.  Thus  does  he 
look  on  the  world,  a  pessimist.  "The  times 
are  out  of  joint,"  and  he  mistakes  Venice  for 
the  world.  He  has  not  kept  face  toward  God. 
He  has  watched  Venice,  when  he  should  have 
watched  motions  of  the  constellations  march- 
ing their  armies  toward   God.     He  miscon- 


Shy  lock  and  David  as  Interpreters  of  Life      335 

strued  life,  because  he  hated  the  world. 
Things,  all  things  were  awry,  he  put  down  as 
a  foundation  truth.  We  scarcely  have  it  in 
heart  to  blame  him,  his  provocation  was  so 
great.  His  world  hissed  him.  Not  a  friend 
reached  hand  toward  him  in  day  or  dark.  He 
was  alone.  He  was  watched  as  carrion  birds, 
waiting  for  food,  sit  by  to  see  a  soldier  die. 
Hear  him:  "He  hath  disgraced  me,  and  hin- 
dered me  half  a  million;  laughed  at  my  losses, 
mocked  at  my  gains,  scorned  my  nation, 
thwarted  my  bargains,  cooled  my  friends, 
heated  mine  enemies;  and  what's  his  reason? 
I  am  a  Jew.  Hath  not  a  Jew  eyes?  hath  not 
a  Jew  hands,  organs,  dimensions,  senses,  af- 
fections, passions?  fed  with  the  same  food, 
hurt  with  the  same  weapons,  subject  to  the 
same  diseases,  healed  by  the  same  means, 
warmed  and  cooled  by  the  same  winter  and 
summer,  as  a  Christian  is?  If  you  prick  us, 
do  we  not  bleed?  if  you  tickle  us,  do  we  not 
laugh?  if  you  poison  us,  do  we  not  die?  if  you 
wrong  us,  shall  we  not  revenge?  If  we  are  like 
you  in  the  rest,  we  shall  resemble  you  in  that. 
If  a  Jew  wrong  a  Christian,  what  is  his  humil- 
ity? revenge.  If  a  Christian  wrong  a  Jew, 
what  should  his  sufferance  be  by  Christian  ex- 


336  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

ample?  why,  revenge.  The  villainy  you  teach 
me,  I  will  execute;  and  it  shall  go  hard,  but  I 
will  better  the  instruction."  Clearly,  Shylock 
was  bitter,  exceeding  bitter  against  the  world. 
Lear  was;  Timon  of  Athens  was;  but  the  fal- 
lacy of  pessimism  lies  here:  It  bases  argument 
on  unsupported  propositions.  The  premises 
are  insufficient.  One  hypocrite  does  not  jus- 
tify us  treating  all  men  as  such.  One  friend 
proven  untrue,  does  not  prove  friendship  a 
delusion.  The  narrow  view  is  not  the  true 
view.  One  lattice  will  not  give  all  the  heavens. 
There  is  a  scowl  on  Shylock's  face.  It  never 
lifts.  He  has  jaundiced  eyes,  and  white  light 
looks  something  else;  stars  have  lost  brilliancy, 
and  come  to  be  as  the  spent  flame  on  autumn 
leaves.  Shylock  was  hostile  to  life.  He  was 
against  conditions  universal,  will  war  with  all, 
will  treat  the  world  as  Eric  Brighteyes  his 
foes,  puts  back  against  the  rock,  clutches  his 
enemy,  hurls  him  from  the  cliff,  though  he  and 
his  foe  fall  to  their  death  together.  However 
natural  Shylock's  attitude,  it  was  wrong.  Life 
is  not  to  be  antagonized,  but  used;  and  to  be- 
come belligerent  is  to  destroy  it.  To  hack 
with  scimiter  or  crusader's  ax  is  not  life  elo- 
quent, generative,   productive.     Shylock  was 


Shylock  and  David  as  Interpreters  of  Life      337 

all  for  venegance,  and  forgets  God's  saying, 
"Vengeance  is  mine,  I  will  repay."  He  took 
his  case  in  his  own  hands,  when  righteousness 
dares  leave  its  case  to  God.  Pessimism 
blighted  Shylock,  as  it  will  blight  any  soul. 
He  was  great  enough  to  have  kept  the  color 
of  his  own  spirit,  and  not  like  the  sea  to  have 
borrowed  his  hues.  Clearly  Shylock  did  not 
get  the  right  estimate  of  life. 

Contrast  Browning's  "Saul"  with  "Merchant 
of  Venice."  The  poem  gives  outlook  shore- 
less as  the  open  heavens.  Saul,  king  of  Israel, 
is  sunk  in  lethargy.  Coma  has  seized  him. 
In  his  darkened  tent 

"He   stood  as  erect   as  that  tent-prop,   both   arms 

stretched  out  wide 
On  the  great  cross-support  in  the  center,  that  goes 

on  each  side; 
He  relaxed  not  a  muscle,  but  hung  there  as  caught 

in  his  pangs    .     .     . 
So    agonized    Saul,    drear    and    stark,    blind    and 

dumb." 

And  David  comes, 

"God's  child  with  his  dew 
On  thy  gracious  gold  hair,  and  those  lilies  still  living 

and  blue, 
Just  broken  to  twine  round  thy  harp-strings, 
As  if  no  wild  heat  were  raging  to  torture  the  desert!" 

22 


338  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

He  "knelt  down  to  the  God  of  his  fathers," 
and  rising,  begins  to  play  upon  his  harp.  Life 
sweeps  its  vision  past  the  poet's  eyes.  Brown- 
ing is  right;  let  the  poet  alone  to  see.  That 
is  his  office.  He  is  God's  laureate  to  celebrate 
God's  triumphs  and  God's  truths.  A  perverted 
vision  sees  part;  an  unhindered  vision  sees 
all.  Life  is  one  vast  circumference,  vaster  than 
any  of  us  have  guessed.  We  must  allow  it 
growth-room.  David  is  optimist.  The  air 
through  which  he  looks  is  lately  washed  by 
rains,  so  as  to  be  pure.  No  smoke  nor  dust 
hinders  sight.  Pessimism  sees  through  an 
imperfect  visual  medium.  Objects  are  given 
wrong  colors.  Imperfect  perspectives  are  con- 
ceived. But  David  looks  through  serene  air. 
Both  near  and  far  are  distinct.  He  gets  all 
objects  on  the  landscape,  and  gets  them  in 
their  right  relations,  a  thing  so  necessary  and 
so  difficult.  The  import  of  Saul  is,  Discover, 
employ,  and  enjoy  life.  Let  its  entirety  have  a 
minstry  to  your  spirit.  Antagonism  of  the 
world,  is  Shylock;  employment  of  the  world, 
is  David. 

This  is  Browning's  superior  message  to  his 
generation.    He  is  little  given  to  complaining. 


Shy  lock  and  David  as  Interpreters  of  Life      339 

Complaining  is  never  profitable  business. 
Railing  is  non-productive.  Browning  is  con- 
structive. Here  discover  the  secret  of  his 
might.  He  is  not  untangling  a  skein,  but 
weaving  at  a  loom;  his  end  being  not  threads, 
but  weft.    His  question  is  always 

"Why  stay  we  on  the  earth  except  to  grow?" 

Earth,  then,  is  a  garden  in  which  we  be 
planted,  a  space  in  which  to  grow  and  con- 
ditions to  supply  the  aliment  for  growth. 
Tennyson  trusts 

"That  somehow  good 
Will  be  the  final  goal  of  ill;" 

but  Browning  is  definite.  He  knows.  Evil, 
by  antagonisms,  does  good  even  here.  Neither 
will  he  remove  its  possibility  of  profit  to  a  re- 
mote hereafter.  Evil  is  evil  still,  but  over- 
borne. Hindrances  removed  or  surmounted 
by  our  strength  give  courage,  vigor,  self-poise, 
mastery.  Here  is  his  teaching  Biblical.  God 
did  not  make  evil,  but  does  make  "the  wrath 
of  man  to  praise  him."  Sin  is  the  misuse  of 
free  will;  and  misuse  is  a  prerogative  of  the 


34°  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

free  spirit,  as  is  right  use.  But  God  is  in  his 
world  to  hinder  wrong  and  help  righteousness. 
The  sway  of  evil  is  not  as  appears.  Toplady 
has  sung  this  philosophy  thus: 

"But  should  the  surges  rise 
And  rest  delay  to  come, 
Blest  be  the  tempest,  kind  the  storm 
Which  drives  us  nearer  home." 

Evil  is  potent;  God  is  omni-potent.  So 
Browning  conceives  life  as  a  whole,  whose 
uses  are  salutary  and  uplifting.  In  many 
poems  he  presents  faces  of  this  truth;  in  Saul 
the  entire  path  is  trod.  From  start  to  goal, 
nothing  is  omitted.  David  is  spokesman  for 
life.    He  begfins  well: 


-&* 


"Then  I,  as  was  meet 
Knelt  down  to  the  God  of  my  fathers." 

Prayer  is  helper  to  true  views.  This  is  a 
profound  fact  in  the  profoundest  philosophy. 
Prayer  clarifies  air  and  vision.    Then,  saith  he, 

"I    tuned   my    harp — took    off    the    lilies    we    twine 
round  its  chords, 
Lest  they  snap  'neath  the  stress  of  the  noontide — 
those  sunbeams  like  swords! 


Shylock  and  David  as  Interpreters  of  Life      34 1 

And  I  first  played  the  tune  all  our  sheep  know,  as 

one  after  one 
So  docile  they  come  to  the  pen-door  till  folding  be 

done." 

Then  the  tunes  for  the  birds  and  the  crickets. 
Then  he  played  "The  help-tune  of  the  reap- 
ers;" then,  "The  last  song  when  the  dead  man 
is  praised  on  his  journey,"  crooning 

"Bear,  bear  him  along 
With  his  few  faults  shut  up  like  dead  flowerets." 

Nature,  the  open  where  birds  and  flowers  are, 
and 

"Where  the  long   grasses  stifle  the  waters   in   the 
stream's  bed," 

toil,  "the  glad  chant  of  marriage,"  and  the 
solemn  chant  of  death ; 

"Then  the  chorus  intoned 
As  the    Levites    go    up   to   the   altar   in    glory   en- 
throned." 

Pray  what  lacks  this  of  being  life's  procession? 
No  syllable  is  wanting  from  the  word.  Life's 
music  may  be  free  from  care,  or  burdened  with 
toil,  or  glad  with  wedding  march,  or  sad  with 


34 2  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

funeral  dirge,  or  solemn  with  psalm  and 
prayer;  for  life  is  all  this.  But  life  is  a  joy, 
and  not  a  curse  to  be  borne  like  an  o'er-heavy 
cross. 

"O,  the  wild  joys  of  living!  the  leaping  from  rock 

up  to  rock, 
The  strong  rending  of  boughs  from  the  fir-tree, 

the  cool  silver  shock 
Of  the  plunge  in  a  pool's  living  water,  the  hunt  of 

the  bear, 
And  the  sultriness  showing  the  lion  is  crouched 

in  his  lair, 
And  the  meal,  the  rich  dates  yellowed  over  with 

gold-dust  divine, 
And  the   locust-flesh   steeped   in  the   pitcher,   the 

full  draught  of  wine, 
And  the  sleep  in  the  dried   river-channel   where 

bulrushes  tell 
That  the  water  was  wont  to  go  warbling  so  softly 

and  well. 

How  good  is  man's  life,  the  mere  living!  how  fit 

to  employ 
All  the  heart  and  the  soul  and  the  senses  forever 

in  joy! 
Hast   thou   loved  the   white   locks   of   thy   father, 

whose  sword  thou  did'st  guard 
When  he  trusted  thee  forth  with  the  armies,  for 

glorious  reward? 


Shylock  and  David  as  Interpreters  of  Life      34-3 

Did'st  thou  see  the  thin  hands  of  thy  mother,  held 

up  as  men  sung 
The  low  song  of  the  nearly  departed,  and  hear  her 

faint  tongue 
Joining  in  while  it  could  to  the  witness,  'Let  one 

more  attest 
I  have  lived,  seen  God's  hand  through  a  lifetime, 

and  all  was  for  best!  '  " 

Who  does  not  recognize  this  as  true?  The 
bounding  step,  the  resiliency  of  youth,  the 
cloudless  hope,  the  joy  in  mere  physical  ex- 
istence, the  delight  in  simple  life,  in  whose  air 
birds  carol  and  flowers  grow  beautiful!  Ec- 
stasy is  on  us.  The  laughter  and  singing  of 
little  children  is  native  to  them  as  babbling 
and  brightness  to  the  brooks.  There  is  a 
sheer,  unreasoning  laughter  of  spirit,  and  a 
muscular  delight  whose  rejoicing  is  in  exist- 
ence as  strong  men  in  triumph  of  battle.  You 
are  eager  for  life,  as  a  fair  woman  for  her 
lover's  coming.  The  world  is  bounteous  in 
beauty.  Flowers  and  clouds  and  landscapes 
and  fair  women  are  God's  visible  aesthetics. 
"Enjoy  the  day,"  sang  epicurean  Horace;  and 
he  was  right,  if  we  may  put  an  interpretation 
on  his  words.  Enjoy  the  world.  It  is  a  foun- 
tain spouting  waters  in  summer  from  a  preci- 


344  The  Poefs  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

pice  of  snow,  cold,  crystal  clear,  intoxicating- 
to  the  eye,  limpid  as  a  good  man's  soul,  and 
a  sheer  delight  to  parched  lips, — drink  and 
be  glad!  Let  your  soul  laugh,  like  sunbeams 
kissing  flowers.  Recall  the  beauty  of  New 
England  hills.  The  climbing  mountain,  the 
blue  far  vistas,  the  music-murmur  of  pines, 
the  drift  of  slow  clouds  across  your  plot 
of  surprising  azure,  the  sagging  meadow, 
tall  with  grasses,  and  the  brooks, — who  can 
tell  of  them  as  they  are?  The  noisy  stream 
coming  from  hidden  sources,  bustling,  busy, 
intent,  going  racing  toward  the  sea, — how  the 
waters  hurry  round  the  pebbles,  how  they 
visit  old  and  gnarly  tree-roots,  and  gather  in 
a  pool  pellucid  as  light  where  the  fish  lie 
aslumber  at  noon;  how  it  laves  the  mosses 
and  catches  reluctant  pine-cones  and  bears 
them  as  freight  on  its  rocking  tide!  Like  a 
cheerful  face,  the  brook's  smile  is  for  every- 
thing. It  has  no  favorites.  Little  children  or 
solemn  kine  may  stand  in  its  clear  waters.  It 
can  not  wait,  but  wild  with  glee  dances  down 
the  mountain-side.  How  wild  the  laughter  of 
it!  How  its  voices  tangle  with  our  dreams! 
How  it  bids  everybody  "Be  glad,  be  glad!" 
How  it  stands  in  deep  hollows,  and  rests  as 


Shy  lock  and  David  as  Interpreters  of  Life      345 

if  grown  weary  with  its  racing,  then  eddies 
and  spurts,  and  good-bye — and  is  gone  down 
and  on,  and  yonder  sings  its  way  into  a  river, 
and   the   river   babbles   over   its    stones    and 
rushes  down  rapids  in  foam  and  tangle  and 
silver,  and  leaps  in  a  waterfall ;  and  all  the  night 
you  sleep  with  the  waters  singing  like  some 
serenader  at  your  window,  and  your  dreams 
are  helped  as  by  an  unseen  angel's  singing. 
Or  on  a  sunny  day,  lie  in  the  meadows,  and 
listen  to  hidden  waters  where  beneath  grasses 
they   find   a  tortuous   channel.      But   for  the 
voice  you  would  not  know  a  thread  of  stream 
passed  near  you.    But  push  grasses  aside,  and 
see  how  a  chalice  full  of  crystal  reflects  your 
face,  and  into  it,  as  some  mimic  silver  chimes 
soft  and   sweet  as  voices  of  our  beloved,  a 
stream  is  falling.    Who  can  forget  these  voices 
of  the  hidden  waters?     Or  who  can  deny  life 
has  delight,  when   such  memories  haunt  the 
mind's  daylight  and  dark?     But  life  is  more, 
always  more.     God  knows  where  all  life  is, 
but  we  get  it  by  fragments  as  children  get 
knowledge.     T  is  a  long  though  delightsome 
voyage  to  circumnavigate  this   sea.      Life   is 
ample  as  eternity.    Beginnings  alone  are  here. 
Life  is  enjoying;  but  life  is  also  achieving. 


34°  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

To  lie  by  brooklets,  dreaming  in  the  sun,  is  not 

life  at  its  best.    We  are  to  do.    We  are  parts 

of  history.     We  come  and  pass,  but  leave  a 

shadow  and  a  footprint  where  we  trod.     We 

change  the  world  we  came  to.     And  so  this 

poet  David  must  strike  harp  to  sing  kingship 

now: 

"Each  deed  thou  hast  done 
Dies,  revives,  goes  to  work  in  the  world  until  e'en 

as  the  sun 
Looking  down   on   the   earth,   though   clouds   spoil 

him,  though  tempests  efface, 
Can  find  nothing  his  own  deed  produced  not,  must 

everywhere  trace 
The  results  of  his  past  summer-prime, — so,  each  ray 

of  thy  will, 
Every  flash  of  thy  passion  and  prowess,  long  over, 

shall  thrill 
Thy  whole  people,  the  countless,  with  ardor,  until 

they,  too,  bring  forth 
A  like  cheer  to  their  sons;  who  in  turn  fill  the  South 

and  the  North 
With  the  audience  thy  deed  was  the  germ  of.     Ca- 
rouse in  the  past!" 

And  he  thrills  the  dreaming  spirit  to  the 
point  of  march,  conquest,  enthronement.  Our 
long  to-day  is  arena  where  power  struggles 
and  achieves.  Make  self  a  prince,  a  mighty 
memory  on  whose  wings  the  ages  shall  be 


Shylock  and  David  as  Interpreters  of  Life      34? 

upborne.  Achieve!  Life  is  more  than  play- 
ground. It  is  harvest-field  and  battle-field.  It 
is  a  place  to  suffer  and  bear  silent  sorrow,  and 
exert  the  effort  of  a  Hercules,  and  know  the 
prose  of  toil  and  poetry  of  battle.  All  life  is, 
live!    Edward  Rowland  Sill  is  right: 

"Forenoon  and  afternoon  and  night, — Forenoon, 
And  afternoon,  and  night, — forenoon  and — what! 
The  empty  song  repeats  itself.    No  more? 

Yea,  that  is  life:  make  this  forenoon  sublime, 
This  afternoon  a  psalm,  this  night  a  prayer. 
And  Time  is  conquered,  and  thy  crown  is  won." 

Enduring  is  itself  conquest.  All  that  as- 
serts the  mastery  of  man  over  environment 
and  his  own  conscious  and  necessary  regality 
are  to  be  set  down  in  the  column  of  achieve- 
ment. To  think,  to  become  transcendent,  to 
defy  spaces  and  geographies,  to  use  stars  as 
lamps  to  light  us  on  our  journey,  to  hold 
communion  with  immortals,  be  they  poets, 
philosophers,  generals,  discoverers,  seers,  to 
feel  the  vigor  of  creation  on  us,  and  become 
"makers"  as  poets  are,  to  feel  that  all  human 
achievements  lie  at  our  feet  like  waves  break- 
ing on  a  shore, — to  think.  And  this  is  a  terri- 
tory of  the  domain  of  life.    Here  men  become 


348  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

equals.  Here  riches  and  birth  become  tawdry. 
Here  centuries  meet  as  brothers.  This  is  the 
democracy  of  thought,  and  thought  is  achieve- 
ment splendid  and  immortal. 

But  living,  enjoying,  achieving,  is  that  life's 
circumference?  By  man's  philosophy  it  may 
be,  but  by  a  Divine  philosophy  it  is  not.  Love 
is  left  yet,  and  God  and  these  make  life  com- 
plete.   A  poet  says: 

"Love  maketh  life  and  life's  great  work  complete. 
Some  day  will  come  the  setting  of  the  sun, 
And  this  brief  day  of  the  long  work  be  done. 
There  will  be  folded  hands,  lips  without  breath; 
But    we    shall   have    passed    on — love    knows    no 
death." 

Love   is   greater  than  achieving.      Conquest 
may  be  for  self,  and  often  is;  but  love  is  always 
for  others.     Let  Saul  rise  to  love.     Let  his 
conquests  become  subsidiary. 
But — God!    He  is  life's  goal. 

"Then  the  truth  came  upon  me.     No  harp  more — 
No  song  more!  outbroke" — 

And  God  burst  on  the  soul!  I  climbed  a 
mountain  of  the  Sierras.  The  way  was  steep; 
the  boulders  were  huge,  the  pines  stood  mar- 


Shy  lock  and  David  as  Interpreters  of  Life      349 

shaled  like  troops  of  soldiers,  when,  on  a 
sudden,  I  found  me  on  a  height;  and  a  lake 
bluer  than  skies  of  Italy  filled  all  my  field  of 
view.  The  background  was  snowy  peaks,  and 
the  hollow  filled  to  the  brim  with  a  wonder  of 
blue  waters.  I  saw  nothing  else.  This  seized 
my  senses.  Thus  David  caught  sight  of  God. 
Moral  truth  made  his  landscape.  God  swal- 
lowed up  all  besides.  He  was  blinded  by  it, 
and  broke  off  his  music.  When  God  is  seen, 
who  shall  attempt  song  or  harp? 

"I  have  gone  the  whole  round  of  creation:   I   saw 

and  I  spoke; 
I  a  work  of  God's  hand  for  that  purpose,  received 

in  my  brain, 
And  pronounced  on  the  rest  of  his  handiwork — 

returned  him  again 
His  creation's  approval  or  censure:  I  spoke  as  I 

saw. 
I  report  as  a  man  may  of  God's  work — all 's  love, 

yet  all 's  law. 
Now  I  lay  down  the  judgeship  he  lent  me.     Every 

faculty  tasked 
To  perceive  him,  has  gained  an  abyss,  where  a 

dew-drop  was  asked. 
Have    I    knowledge?     Confounded   it   shrivels   at 

Wisdom  laid  bare. 
Have  I  forethought?     How  purblind,  how  blank 

to  the  Infinite  Care! 


35°  The  Poet's  Poet  and  Other  Essays 

Do  I  task  any  faculty  highest  to  image  success? 
I  but  open  my  eyes, — and  perfection,  no  more  and 

no  less, 
In  the  kind  I  imagined,  full-fronts  me,  and  God  is 

seen  God 
In  the  star,  in  the  stone,  in  the  flesh,  in  the  soul 

and  the  clod. 
And  thus  looking  within  and  around  me,  I  ever 

renew 
(With   that  stoop   of  the   soul   which   in   bending 

upraises  it  too) 
The  submission  of  man's  nothing-perfect  to  God's 

all-complete, 
As  by  each  new  obeisance  of  spirit  I  climb  to  his 

feet." 

"I  seek  and  find  it.    O  Saul,  it  shall  be 
A  face  like  my  face  that  receives  thee;  a  man  like 

to  me, 
Thou  shalt  love  and  be  loved  by,  forever;  a  Hand 

like  this  hand 
Shall  throw  open  the  gates  of  new  life  to  theel 

See  the  Christ  stand!" 

So  "Saul"  sets,  a  blaze  of  glory. 

And  who  is  right,  Shylock  or  David?  Life 
is  antagonism,  Shylock  said.  Life  is  being, 
enjoying,  enduring,  suffering,  thinking,  achiev- 
ing, believing,  loving,  seeing  God  and  getting 
Christ,  said  David.  David  is  right.  Life  is 
not  so  much  exclusion  as  inclusion.     And  as 


Shylock  and  David  as  Interpreters  of  Life      35 l 

the  horizon  holds  hill,  valley,  hamlet,  solitude, 
woodland,  sunrise,  and  sunset,  home  with  little 
children  and  God's  quiet  acre, — so  life  con- 
tains ourselves,  from  the  mere  joy  of  living, 
through  loving,  up  to  mighty  joy  of  holding 
God  by  the  right  hand  so  we  shall  not  be 
moved.  This  is  David's  amazing  estimate;  and 
it  assures  the  spirit,  answers  our  deepest  need, 
gives  wings  and  might,  courage  and  conquest; 
and  calms  our  unrest, 

"Like  the  benediction 
That  follows  after  prayer." 


An  Angel  Came 

One  noon  I  met  an  angel  by  the  way, 
And  giving  hand  of  welcome,  bade  him  stay 

Beneath  my  roof  and  rest. 
He  looked  aweary,  having  traveled  far; 
From  heaven  he  came,  in  that  remoter  star 
Than  men  have  mapped  on  the  celestial  sphere. 
With  grave,   sweet  face,   he   stood.      His  voice  was 
clear 

As  silver  bells.     He  dressed 
In  mystic,  seamless  garment,  dyed  with  blood; 
And  round  him,  glory  whitened  like  a  flood 
Of  morning  light.     My  home  with  many  a  guest, 
Brave  men  and  pure,  had  oftentime  been  blessed; 

But  now, — an  angel  stood 
Tall  and  compassionate,  beneath  my  roof! 
At  heart,  I  thought,  "How  shall  I  give  him  proof 
That  he  is  welcome?"     "This  home,"  I  said, 
"Is  thine.    Wait  thou  until  the  heat  be  fled, 

And  by  the  stream  and  wood 
Cool  shadows  gather.    Angel,  be  my  guest, 
Sit  thou  in  quietude  and  take  thy  rest." 

"My  name  is — "  "Nay,"  the  gracious  angel  said, 
"Thy  name  is  known  in  heaven;"  and  then  he  fled 
Swift  like  the.  light  across  the  ample  sea, 
But  left  an  angel  at  my  heart  with  me. 
352 


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